


Live and Die This Way

by JustJasper



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gun Violence, Human Trafficking, M/M, Rape, Road Trip, Sexual Slavery, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2017-12-03 22:30:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 13
Words: 21,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/703339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustJasper/pseuds/JustJasper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU - Derek is a transporter, who moves cargo and asks no questions. It's hard not to have questions, however, when the cargo starts thrashing around in the trunk of your car.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic deals explicitly with themes of sexual slavery and abuse. This is not "slave!fic", it's not here for your slavery kinks or fetishes.

Derek Morgan found the car at the designated location, and as always didn’t meet the client in person. Half the money before, and the rest after the delivery, that was the way it worked. He didn’t ask what he was carrying, and made sure nothing stopped him from delivering it.   
  
The drive was normal for the first fifty miles, until the banging from the trunk started. Morgan tried to ignore it, but it was random and constant, and he sighed in frustration and turned the radio off, parking up on the shoulder of the highway under the morning sun.  
  
“If this is another giant illegal snake I am going to flip out,” he murmured, heading around the back of the vehicle and popping the trunk.  
  
It was not a snake; it was a naked man bound at his ankles, his wrists behind his back, a black bag over his head and a ball-gag secured over it in his mouth. The bottom felt as if it had dropped out of his stomach; Morgan was aware in the back of his mind that he had likely transported people before, people destined for cruel fates, but he’d never had to think about it because he’d never had to know what he was carrying.  
  
“Shit,” Morgan murmured and the man flinched. Now that he knew, there was no way he could drive straight on through to his destination knowing what – who - he had to deliver. Not explicitly knowing had been all that had enabled him to keep taking the jobs, telling him he would stop when he’d reached his goal.   
  
The man in the trunk was skinny and young looking, bruised at his ankles and wrists as though the restrained wasn’t a one-time occurrence.   
  
“Listen kid,” he sighed, “I’m gonna take your gag off to talk to you. Now you can holler and scream if you want, but we’re seventy miles into the ass-end of nowhere, so you’re just gonna waste your breath and piss me off.”  
  
He reached around to the back of the man’s head and unbuckled the strap, pulling it away from the covered face. The ball was wedged between the man’s teeth, and as Morgan gripped it and pulled it out, the man moved suddenly and bit down on Morgan’s hand, hard enough that the cloth tore under the pressure.  
  
“Son of a bitch!” Morgan yelled, yanking his hand away and fighting the temptation to backhand the masked man. He had an impressive bite mark below his thumb, blood oozing to the surface. “Do you want me to leave you in this damn trunk tied up and bare-ass naked, kid?”  
  
“Fuck you!” The man’s voice was thready and small, and muffled by the cloth.  
  
“Kid,” he said, and took a calming breath, and then another. “I’m not gonna hurt you. As long as you don’t do anything stupid, anyway. Can’t let you see my face, so I’m gonna leave that bag on as a blindfold. Don’t struggle.”  
  
He ripped down from the tear the man had created using his teeth, glad that the captive didn’t struggle as he turned it and tied it as a blindfold. He pulled a knife out of his pocket and brandished it in front of the man’s face, and when he didn’t flinch he knew he couldn’t see.  
  
“What the hell am I gonna do with you, kid?” Morgan murmured as he cut the plastic tie binding the man’s wrists. He hissed in pain and pulled his arms against his chest, rubbing at the sore skin. “Are you gonna try run off if I undo your ankles?”  
  
“Where am I going to go?” He asked bitterly, rolling his wrists and flexing his fingers.  
  
“I’ve got some spare clothes,” Morgan said, going around to the side of the car and opening the side door to fish around in his bag. When he returned to the boot the man was perched on the edge, not even bothering to conceal his nudity as he held on. Even though he couldn’t see, Morgan tried not to look to give the man some dignity as he bent to cut the tie binding his ankles.   
  
“Here.” He pressed the spare clothes into the man’s grasp. “Put these on.”  
  
With some difficulty the man did, even though the sweatpants and v-neck were too big for him. He grabbed the man by the arm and pulled down the trunk, guiding him around to the passenger seat and shoving him inside.  
  
“Stay,” Morgan said. “I need to make a call.”  
  
He walked across the dusty road, a couple dozen feet from the car, where he was out of earshot but he could still see the man through the open window and hit speed dial.  
  
“We have a problem,” he said as soon as the call was picked up.  
  
“Oh.” The drawling masculine tone of the operator called Foyet on the other end didn’t sound particularly worried. “Did it die, or something?”  
  
“It –  _he_  – wasn’t sedated. I assume that’s how things are done when we move people?”  
  
“Did it see your face?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Then smack it around a bit and then drive it to the destination.”  
  
“He was naked and tied up. I know what kinda shit I’m moving, I can’t do that.”  
  
“We don’t pay you to have a conscience.”  
  
“I’m not doing it.”  
  
“Yes you are.”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Your friend Penelope is going to be disappointed to hear that.”  
  
Morgan felt his heart give a jolt. “What?”  
  
“You didn’t think we send drivers on these jobs without having leverage, did you? Poor Penelope, poor little dyke Penelope and her dyke girlfriend Emily. Haven’t they just had a new baby? And they’ve already got a little boy, haven’t they? Lucas. Wouldn’t it be a shame if those two kiddies lost their dyke mommies? A shame for you, I guess. The little angels are probably better off without them.”  
  
“If you touch them-” Morgan growled.  
  
“They’ll be fine, Hermes, if you deliver your package to the destination. Undamaged, if you would. Oh, and if you call your dyke friend to warn her, well, that’s not going to end well for anyone. Toodles!”  
  
Morgan hung up, and kicked at the ground in frustration. He’d been so careful not to drag the people he cared about into his world. He hadn’t been careful enough.  
  
The captive man was still sat in the passenger seat when Morgan got back. He turned his head at the sound of Morgan’s approaching footsteps, and shrunk away when Morgan got into the car. He turned on the ignition and pushed the button to roll up the passenger window.  
  
“Tinted windows.”  
  
“What?” Morgan looked over. The man was fidgeting with the hem at the sleeve of the shirt.  
  
“You must have tinted windows. Else you wouldn’t sit me up front.”  
  
“Smart.”  
  
“You’re not going to let me go, are you?”  
  
“I can’t, kid.”  
  
“Do you know where you’re taking me?”  
  
“I don’t wanna know. I have to take you.”  
  
The man didn’t argue, but his shoulders did slump a bit as the little tiny bit of hope that had grown in him died. Morgan ignored it, because he had to.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgan struggles with what he has to do, even though he doesn't have a choice.

They drove without speaking, only the radio for company. Two hours of driving, and the occasional tiny noise of pain from the masked man beside him left Morgan frustrated. He pulled up again on the highway, grumbling as he reached into the backseat. The man was shrinking away from him again, head jolting as he turned at each little noise. He yelled when Morgan grabbed one of his arms.  
  
“Hey!” Morgan barked. “Keep still!”  
  
The man was scared enough to comply, but the pain he was likely expecting never came. Morgan examined the man’s wrist, which was rubbed raw and bleeding, and had been the cause of the man’s pained noises.  
  
“Damn, kid.” He murmured. “Sit still.” He got out of the car, taking a bottle of water with him and went around to the passenger’s side to open the door. “Put your arms out. I’m not going to hurt you,” he added when the man hesitated.  
  
Slowly he extended his arms, and Morgan gripped the fingers of one hand to steady it as he poured water over his damaged wrist. The man tried to flinch but Morgan had a firm hold, and when he realised what it was he relaxed. He gently cleaned the wound with his thumb under the steady stream of water. He did the other, thumbing away a patch of dried blood, with care not to disturb the wound and make it bleed again. He pulled up the bottom of the trousers the man was wearing to look at his ankles, which were sore and red but not bleeding, so he left them.  
  
“What’re you doing?” the man asked as Morgan climbed back into the car and clicked open his medical kit.   
  
“I’m gonna bandage your wrists. They’ll get infected otherwise.”  
  
Carefully Morgan wrapped bandages around the wounded flesh, and as he did he couldn’t help his eyes wandering. The man was skinny, with a lot of scruffy brown hair, a tangled mess around his face. He had a small nose with a few faint freckles across the bridge, high cheekbones, and plump pink lips, which were slightly cracked.  
  
“Thanks.” The blindfolded man murmured.  
  
“Don’t thank me. They told me to bring you in undamaged.”  
  
He pulled his gaze away to pack the medical kit up again, and started to drive. The sun was high in the sky and the landscape was getting slowly more populated as they came up to a town. A town meant conveniences, and food. It also meant the risk of exposing his passenger and having someone asking questions as to why he had a bandaged, blindfolded man in his car. He drew his gun out and cocked it just to use to placate the passenger; the man gasped and flinched, recognising the sound.  
  
“Need you to be quiet, kid,” he said. “If you make a fuss, that’ll be the easiest way to get yourself killed. Got it?” The man nodded. “You hungry?”  
  
“I- what?”  
  
“Are you hungry?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Okay.” Morgan nodded to himself as he turned the car into a drive-thru. “Keep quiet,” he reminded the man as he pressed the button to roll down the driver window so he could speak into the intercom. The woman at the service window seemed too distracted by him to notice his passenger as he collected the food. He shoved one of the bags unceremoniously at the captive as he headed back to the highway, his own between his knees. The man still hadn’t opened his by the time they were heading out of the town.  
  
“You’re not a vegetarian, are you?”  
  
“Huh? No.”  
  
“Get some food in you, then.”  
  
Hesitating as the paper bag crinkled between his fingers, the man turned his covered face towards Morgan and the sound of his voice. “This is all for me?”  
  
“What? Yeah,” Morgan said obviously. “It’s just a burger and fries.”  
  
He didn’t seem to be listening, as he began wolfing down his fries several at a time, small appreciative noise escaping him.  
  
“When was the last time you had a decent meal?” Morgan chuckled, but as he glanced over he was reminded how skinny the man was. The man’s eating had slowed a little, seemingly over the panic that the food would disappear or be taken away if he didn’t eat it quick enough. They ate in quiet for a while, the radio volume low in the background.  
  
“You got a name, kid?”  
  
The man, who had just taken a large bite of burger, drew it away from his mouth, chewing slowly, and was sure if he wasn’t blindfolded he would have been staring at him. After a moment, he swallowed.  
  
“What are you doing?”  
  
“What?” Morgan looked away from the road a second.   
  
“Dressing my wounds, clothing me, feeding me, asking my name, as if you haven’t got a clue what you’re taking me to.”  
  
“Kid-”  
  
“You’d have to be stupid not to realise you’re now a sex trafficker. Because let me remind you in case you’re trying to convince yourself otherwise, I was tied up and naked in the trunk of your car. I’m getting sold from one man to another. For sex. To a man who will beat me, fuck me, and cut me to pieces, over and over until he’s got his money’s worth. Possibly not in that order.”  
  
Morgan discarded the remainder of his burger out of his window, his appetite fleeing, while the other man went back into take another bite of his.  
  
“Are you just going to hand me over? Is it going to be that easy for you to treat me like a human being and then...” His voice trailed off, and he turned his face away as he continued to eat.  
  
“I wanted to let you go as soon as I realised I had a person in the trunk,” he said, not looking away from the road. “I would have. Except they know where my friend lives. She’s got a girlfriend, and two kids, and she’s-”  
  
“More important than I am.” The man nodded, wiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. “I guess this is better than being in the trunk.” He gave a little laugh, a resigned sound he had probably made before.   
  
Morgan kept driving, heading for the destination, even though the uneasy feeling in his gut kept growing stronger. “You’re not bullshitting me, are you?” Morgan said, fidgeting. “That that’s what’ll happen to you? You’re not just some punk-ass kid I’m driving home to daddy?”  
  
“People who are sold into sexual slavery usually don’t get sold on to a secondary buyer. It’s even rarer for them to get sold on again. The odds are that the man who bought me will kill me.”  
  
“How old are you?”  
  
“Twenty one. Which is pretty old in this world.”  
  
“Have you always been a-” he faltered.  
  
“No. About two years ago I was a junkie, and broke. I met a guy who promised to help me get clean. He did, but only so he could sell me to another man.”  
  
“Why is that guy selling you on?”  
  
“He’s trading up,” the man said in a small voice. “The man I’m going to – they call him The Spear - he likes ‘second hand’ product; he likes that when he’s done he gets to dispose of them. I don’t know why, it could be anything: black market organ trafficking, murder or torture for sport, snuff pornography-”  
  
“Stop!” he snapped, thumping the steering wheel.  
  
“You asked.”  
  
“I know, god. I can’t let you go. My friends have two kids. God, what the hell’s your name?”  
  
“I think it would be easier if I don’t tell you, seeing as we know how this will end.”  
  
“It shouldn’t be easy,” Morgan said determinedly. “It shouldn’t be easy to hand you over to get killed.”  
  
The man didn’t speak. Morgan kept driving, trying to ignore the sick feeling in his stomach. His friends – his family – were in danger, and to keep them safe he was going to have to deliver another human being into sexual slavery.  
  
“Spencer Reid.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“My name.”  
  
“Oh,” he said, and then after a beat, “Derek Morgan.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgan has to stick to his plan, but something forces his hand to change.

They’d stopped at trucker services and then kept driving into the sunset, Reid still blindfolding but apparently dozing with his head tucked against his own chest in a way that implied he was used to sleeping in uncomfortable positions. Morgan knew his name now, and his brain had been working overtime to bring him every sordid, horrific possibility of what kind of fate he was delivering him into. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of the fact the man hadn’t attempted to escape. Morgan knew he was doing a good job of being menacing and threatening, even though he knew he’d have real difficulty actually hurting an unarmed person who posed no physical threat to him, even to protect his own interests.  
  
He checked the road was clear and then leant over to the glove compartment, fishing out pack of cigarettes. He was practiced enough to light one up without looking away from the road again, tossing the pack on the dashboard. The evening air coming through the driver window was cool and dry, and stole most of the fumes away with it.  
  
A car passed them in the opposite direction, the first Morgan had seen for an hour, and he tried to make out the model in the dwindling light. He wondered where they were going, if they were going back to a family who were safe. The temptation to call Emily and Penelope was considerable, but he knew better. The people he had a contract with were ruthless; he’d never considered how much so before, because he’d never had a job go wrong before. He hadn’t even known they knew anything about him, he’d done all he could to keep his life separate.  
  
He was distracted, and didn’t notice the car approaching on the road at some speed, the same car that had passed him, that had evidently turned around and pursued. It rammed into his bumper and he swore, ash from his cigarette between his fingers jolted loose and fluttering over the steering wheel. Reid had jerked awake, and was gripping the door frame and the chair as he tried to ascertain blindfolded what was going on. They were rammed again, and he yelped.  
  
“Shit!” Morgan hissed.  
  
“What’s happening?!”  
  
“I’ll give you three guesses!”  
  
The other car had the advantage of surprise and speed, and drew up alongside them, ramming into them. Morgan’s car skidded on the road and teased along the shoulder. There was nowhere to go to outrun them, no amount of tactical driving was going to lose whoever it was.  
  
The other car sped up, overtaking them on the dusty road. A few dozen feet in front it braked and swerved, blocking the road and forcing Morgan to slam on his breaks. He watched the road and saw two figures had stepped out of the larger vehicle, each armed with what looked like a handgun. Slowly, purposefully, he opened his door and stepped out, looking at the other men over his door. He knew it wouldn’t offer much cover if they started to shoot, but it was all there was at his disposal.  
  
“Hermes!” one called, using the pseudonym he was known on the scene by. “You’ve got something that belongs to our employer. Hand over the merchandise, and you can walk away and disappear.”  
  
Morgan took a long breath in, putting aside the questions he had and instead reaching for his gun in its holster behind the cover of the door, transferring it to the back of his jeans and wondering if he’d be able to reach the M16 in the duffle on his backseat before they noticed.  
  
“Fuck,” he muttered, into the silent night in the middle of nowhere, as the light faded fast.  
  
“Hermes!” the other called.  
  
“Come get it!” Morgan shouted, and from inside the car he heard the tiny disappointed sound from Reid, who had obviously hoped Morgan might have not gone through with his plan for him despite all insistence he would.  
  
“Send the property out.”  
  
“It can’t walk, I broke its leg.”  
  
“Bring it out.”  
  
Morgan kept his eye on the men as he crossed around the back of the car, using it as a shield. He opened the passenger door and reached inside to grab Reid roughly by the arm; Reid turned his face towards Morgan’s presence, confused by the sudden dehumanising language coupled with a complete lie.  
  
“Act like your leg is broken,” Morgan whispered quickly as he hauled him out of the car. “Fight me.”  
  
As he grabbed him around the middle and moved away from the car, Reid seemed to get the idea, because he let his legs go limp and gave loud but token struggles against Morgan’s hold.  
  
“Get off me! Let me go! Please!” he screeched.  
  
Morgan walked out in front of the car, towards the two men who were standing in suits in front of theirs, shades on even in the dying light and looking every inch like hired enforcers for someone ruthless. When he was a few dozen feet from them he stopped, shoving the struggling blindfolded man to the asphalt without ceremony, grabbing a handful of his hair to keep him still, the grip looking a lot tighter than it actually was.  
  
“I was bringing it to the destination.”  
  
“We heard there was a problem,” one of the goons said.  
  
“Where did you hear that?”  
  
“Hand it over.”  
  
“I expect the rest of my payment.”  
  
“Sure,” the other man in shades said, a little too easily. “You’ll get it.”  
  
“Good because this job hasn’t-” he didn’t finish the sentence, because he noticed one of them flex their hand and about to raise his gun. Morgan beat him to it, drawing his gun from the back of his jeans and unloading two shots into his chest. He practically threw Reid in one direction and himself in the other, dropping and rolling before the other could get a shot off and fired at him. It hit the man in the thigh and he went down hard, yelling in pain. He fired back at Morgan, who felt a white hot flash of pain in his side, but ignored it and fired twice; the first blew off the man’s ear and left him screaming in pain, the second was better aimed and blew straight through the left side of his head, killing him instantly.  
  
The other man, the one he’d shot in the chest, was gurgling and writhing in pain as Morgan got to his feet. There was no way he’d survive his injuries, and there was nothing to gain from letting him suffer, so Morgan sped his passing by shooting him right between the eyes.   
  
He lifted his shirt and inspected his side; the bullet had grazed him and he was bleeding. It stung, but it didn’t seem that bad.  
  
“Reid?” he called, looking over at the man still sprawled on the road. “Are you okay?”  
  
“Yeah,” he called, pushing himself up. “Are they dead?”  
  
“Yeah.” Morgan took both of their guns and patted their bodies down, then went to their car to see what was in it.  
  
“Why didn’t you hand me over?” Reid said, as Morgan stepped close to him, light from both cars’ headlights illuminating the road.  
  
“They were going to kill me.”  
  
“But your friend-”  
  
“Is gone.”  
  
“Gone?” Reid breathed.  
  
“If they still had leverage, they wouldn’t have come after me. They lost their leverage, and thought I either knew or would find out. Emily must have realised they were being watched, and fled. We have a backup plan. She knows what she’s doing, she’s an ex-professional.”  
  
“Professional what?”  
  
“Just a professional.”  
  
“I don’t understand the reference,” Reid said.  
  
“Professional assassin, kid.”  
  
“Oh. Right.”  
  
“She knows what she’s doing.” Morgan nodded to himself.  
  
“Can I take this off now?” the other asked, reaching up to the remains of the cloth bag over his eyes.  
  
“Don’t,” Morgan said, and watched as Reid hesitated and then dropped his hand.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“If someone else finds us again before we can both disappear, it’ll probably be better for you if they assume you’re my hostage still, and better for both of us if you can’t identify me.”  
  
“Still your hostage?”  
  
“Yeah,” Morgan said, glancing over at the man, who for however skinny and vulnerable he looked stood an inch taller, “you can go. I can drop you at the first town we find, you can do what you want. But if you stick with me, if nobody else catches up to us, I can guarantee you disappear so they can’t ever find you again.”  
  
Reid had his arms folded over his chest, his face turned towards the sound of Morgan’s voice.  
  
“What do you say, kid?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're being tracked, and they can't get away until they've dealt with that.

“We have to switch cars,” Morgan said as they drove on. “And soon. They shouldn’t have known my route, we were in the ass-end of nowhere. I checked the car, took out the GPS, but there could be a secondary device.”  
  
“It’s in me,” Reid said in a resigned voice.  
  
“What?”  
  
“It’s in me.”  
  
“A GPS?”  
  
“I’m property, remember? I’m micro-chipped with a GPS tracking device.” Reid rubbed at his bandaged wrists, turning his head blindly towards the window.  
  
“Were,” Morgan corrected.  
  
“Were what?”  
  
“You were property. You don’t belong to anyone anymore.”  
  
“Maybe so,” Reid continued, a small smile on his lips, “but I still have a tracking device in me. I’m never going to disappear with it in.”  
  
“Do you know where it is?”  
  
“The back of my leg. I can feel it if I press down on the spot.”  
  
“How big is it?”  
  
“It’s about the size of a tic-tac.”  
  
“Do you think we could get it out?”  
  
“You’d have to cut it out, I can’t reach,” Reid reasoned. “From what I heard from another slave I met once, a woman, it’s a lot like having a contraceptive implant. That only takes a little cut. The tracking device is a bit bigger, but not much.”  
  
“We need to do that.”  
  
“We need to do it now.” Reid seemed resigned to the idea, no nervousness showing in his voice. There was something about that which set Morgan on edge.  
  
Ten minutes later they’d pulled up, and the front seats of the car were down, allowing Reid to lay down at an angle on his front, sweatpants removed, the leg without the chip in pulled up crooked. Morgan supposed he shouldn’t be surprised at Reid’s ease with exposing himself after he’d spent years as someone’s sexual plaything, but he still was. The skin of the back of his thighs, above his knees and thankfully below where he said the chip was, was bruised with deep welts, yellowing as they reached the end stages of healing.  
  
“I don’t have any gloves,” Morgan said as he rubbed his hands with the antibacterial hand gel from the medical kit.  
  
“I don’t have any blood borne diseases,” Reid said, with his blindfolded head resting on his folded arms. “The man who owned me tested me every month.”  
  
“Okay.” Morgan found himself wincing every time Reid used language like ‘slave’ and ‘owned’, even though he said it because it was true, without any hint of suggestion that he thought that arrangement had been okay. He eyed the scalpel lying in the lid of the medical kit as he pressed his fingers to the top of Reid’s right thigh, just below the swell of his backside. He pressed down, and with a little motion he felt the small hard lump under his fingers.  
  
“That’s it,” Reid encouraged.  
  
Morgan felt it, and tried to move it a little. “Okay. I’m gonna make a small cut and try and squeeze it out.”   
  
“Another scar,” Reid hummed.  
  
“Sorry. You know what they say;” he murmured, “‘I don’t want to die without any scars’...”  
  
He lifted the small torch he’d set aside and turned it on, then put it in his mouth so he could angle the light to illuminate what he was doing.   
  
He spread his hand out, framing the area where the chip was, and picked up the scalpel. He located the small device again with his finger, and with a breath to steel himself, pressed the tip of the scalpel to Reid’s pale skin and pushed down, breaking through several layers of skin and dragging it a few minimetres across. Reid hissed and flexed his legs, but didn’t move too much. Immediately blood blossomed to the surface and Morgan dabbed at it with a cloth as he framed the chip with his fingers and applied gradual pressure. After a few seconds he could see the silicone tip of the device poking out of the straining wound, but even with more pressure it didn’t want to pop free.  
  
“Hold on,” Morgan said around the torch, reaching for a pair of tweezers. Carefully he framed the metal, having to push the tips of the tweezers into the wound a little, which made Reid hiss again. Careful not to exert too much pressure, keeping it firm, Morgan pulled back and pulled the tracking chip free from Reid’s leg. “Got it.”  
  
He put the chip and the tweezers down on the lid of the medical kit, and pressed the cloth to the small cut. As he held it there, his other hand absently brushed over the bruised skin of the man’s thigh, and reid let out a small sound of discomfort.  
  
“Sorry,” Morgan murmured, moving his hand away and picking up the kit to pack it up.  
  
“It’s okay. We should crush the tracking chip.”  
  
“You wanna do the honours?” Morgan said, picking it up between his fingers and placing it into Reid’s outstretched expectant hand. He turned it between his fingers, and then pressed his nail into the silicone skin and broke it, and proceeded to tear the tiny device apart and then threw the remains out into the dark.  
  
“We still need to change the car,” Morgan said as he got back into the vehicle, watching Reid shift with discomfort as he settled in the seats pulled upright again. “You okay?”  
  
“Yeah. How are we going to find a car without it getting reported stolen? If we get arrested, you’re going to jail, and my buyer will bail me out.”  
  
Morgan sensed the nervousness, and reached across to squeeze the man’s shoulder as they drove. “I promise you, Reid, nobody is ever going to lay their hands on you when you don’t want them to ever again.”  
  
Reid smiled softly, leaning his head against the dark window as they drove through the night. Morgan wasn’t sure if he was going to sleep, but was too curious about him to leave him be.  
  
“What did you do before you got caught up in all this?”  
  
Reid turned his unseeing face towards Morgan. “I’d just got my second degree.”  
  
“Second?”  
  
“I went to college at thirteen.”  
  
“What?” Morgan chuckled. “You some kind of genius?”  
  
“I have an IQ of 187 and can read twenty thousand words a minute.”  
  
“I’ll take that as a yes, then.”  
  
“Intelligence measurement is biased.”  
  
“Sure. Sounds like you don’t have street smarts if you got mixed up with drugs, though.”  
  
“My mom died.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“She was sick. She had schizophrenia. I’d looked after her my whole life, after my dad walked out on us. I didn’t cope well when she died. Without having to pay her medical bills, I suddenly found myself with more money. I shot it all into myself. A guy picked me up in a crack den and got me clean, and then he sold me. Hankel, who bought me wasn’t the worst owner I could have ended up with.”  
  
“Those marks on you say different,” Morgan murmured.  
  
“I’m not saying he was nice, or good, or even that he had a shred of humanity, because he still bought another human being. But it didn’t get rough unless his father took a turn. Or until he started sharing me.”  
  
“Sharing you?” Morgan felt a flash of anger. “How can you say it like what happened to you was a good thing?”  
  
“Because I saw worse.” Reid’s voice was quiet, and he folded his arms over his chest nervously.  
  
He didn’t elaborate, and Morgan didn’t push him. It was bad enough to imagine what the man might have been through, without knowing the reality. Instead, he changed he topic.  
  
“So what did you want to do when you finished college?”  
  
“I was looking into going into the FBI.”  
  
“Really?” Morgan asked, interest piqued.  
  
“I’d already spoken to recruiters. They were interested in me. I would have been the youngest FBI agent on record. It’s never going to happen now.”  
  
“It could,” Morgan said, even if he didn’t believe it.  
  
“No. They’d find me. I know too much.”  
  
“You’ll have to start a whole new life,” Morgan said.  
  
“Where?”  
  
“Wherever you want,” Morgan said. “As long as it’s not North America. We’ve gotta leave the country. I’ve got a retirement plan, I can set you up on your way.”  
  
“Why?” Reid asked softly.  
  
“What do you mean ‘why’?”  
  
“Why are you offering to help me? Why aren’t you just dumping me at the first opportunity?”  
  
Morgan’s shoulders bounced with the huff of a laugh. “Because I wanna be able to sleep at night.”  
  
“You haven’t transported people before, then?” Reid sounded sceptical.  
  
“I probably have. None of them ever banged around in my trunk, though. I never had to know for sure. Blissful ignorance. I’ve done a lot I'm not proud of, and there’s gotta be a line somewhere. You’re the line.”  
  
Reid turned his head back to the window, settling his body down in the seat. “Thanks,” he said softly into the silence.  
  
“Don’t thank me yet, kid,” Morgan muttered, “we’ve got a long way to go.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As they try to make their escape, the two men bond.

Morgan kept driving for several hours, until he thought he might fall asleep at the wheel. They dozed in the car on the side of the road for a couple of hours, too nervous to get any considerable rest, tossing and fretting and waking up in starts. When they came to a second-hand auto dealer Morgan had enough cash to buy something without worrying about paperwork, and the car they were leaving behind was considerably better spec than the one they drove away with. The new vehicle was inconspicuous enough, with tinted windows not as dark as before, but enough to obscure the fact that Reid was still blindfolded.   
  
There was a sense of nervous energy in the car, because they were still technically driving towards the drop-off destination, as Morgan needed to head in that direction anyway. They covered it by talking, normal small talk about their college experiences, and it only took a veiled Star Wars quote on Morgan’s part to tip the conversation into something they both got excited about.  
  
“I’m sorry, I just can’t hate the prequel trilogy,” Morgan said.  
  
“For all their special effects, they really can’t beat the originals, though,” Reid countered.  
  
“Yeah, but one, two and three added so much more to the whole universe. I can’t hate them when we got three movies of McGregor’s performance as Obi-Wan.”  
  
Reid made a sound to concede the point, as Morgan lit up a cigarette. “Are you smoking?” he asked.  
  
“Yeah. You want me to stop?”  
  
“No, can I have one?”  
  
“Oh. Sure.” Morgan lit a second one from the one in his mouth by holding the tips together, and then he reached out and touched Reid’s hand so the man could take it from him.  
  
“You ever notice that in the original trilogy, Lando is the only black guy in the whole galaxy?” Morgan asked.  
  
“No, I’m sure-” Reid paused, apparently thinking as he took a drag of his cigarette. From the uncomfortable sound Morgan could tell he wasn’t used to smoking, but he didn’t make comment on what the man needed to reduce stress. “I never really thought about it.”  
  
“Literally, in the whole galaxy,” Morgan chuckled. “Maybe that’s why I like the prequel trilogy so much, more black folks representing. Even if Jarjar had to exist.”  
  
They both laughed, and talked as Morgan drove for hours. Reid didn’t ask where exactly they were going, and Morgan wasn’t sure he’d have told him if he did, because in the back of his mind he was still wary that they weren’t in the clear yet.  
  
“Do you have someone waiting for you?” Reid asked into a lull in the conversation. “A girlfriend or boyfriend?”  
  
“Nah,” Morgan sounded. “Hard to do, with this job. I was trying to take as many jobs as I could so I’d have the means to retire.”  
  
“Right,” Reid sighed.   
  
The silence they lulled into felt comfortable and easy, a rest from hours of conversation. Reid hadn’t talked like that to anyone in a long time. He barely had time for his friends, let alone conversations about inconsequential, wonderful things.  
  
“Will you pull over?” Reid asked suddenly.  
  
“What? Are you okay?” Morgan asked, as he pulled over onto the side of the road. For the first time He caught himself looking at the other man and wondering what colour his eyes were.  
  
All of a sudden Reid was scrambling across the car and depositing himself in Morgan’s lap, gripping his neck and blindly finding the man’s lips with his own, pressing his thin body against the more muscular one.  
  
“What are you doing?” Morgan pulled away and gripped Reid’s arms.  
  
“I think you know.”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“I want to. And if the way you keep touching my leg is any indication, so do you.”  
  
“This isn’t right,” Morgan said, feeling his chest tighten at the realisation that all the while they’d been talking he’d been unconsciously initiating little touches.  
  
“Two men...?” Reid started hesitantly.  
  
“No,  _this_. I’ve got you blindfolded in a car, Reid, and you don’t owe me anything.”  
  
“This isn’t about me owing you.”  
  
“This whole situation is fucked up,” Morgan said gently, “you don’t need to do this.”  
  
“I know,” Reid said, letting Morgan keep him away from his body, not fighting his restraining hold on his arms. “And there very likely is huge psychological significance, but I’m not doing this out of obligation. I want you. I want you because I know you want me, but you haven’t  _taken_  me.”  
  
“Jesus, Reid, that’s the standard! You don’t just  _take_  a person because you want them.”  
  
“It’s not the standard I’ve had for years,” Reid said honestly. “It’s not what’s normal for me, after where I’ve been. I just want to make a choice about my sexuality. I just want to be touched by someone who wants me, and doesn’t want to hurt me. You don’t want to hurt me, do you?”  
  
“No,” Morgan said, loosening his hold.  
  
“If I asked, would you let me get out of the car?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Would you drop me at the next town if I said I didn’t want to go with you anymore?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“If I wanted to, would you stop me taking off this blindfold?”  
  
“I’d tell you it was a bad idea.”  
  
“But would you stop me if I really wanted it?” Reid had pressed closer again, so close his breath was dancing across his jaw.  
  
“No.”  
  
“If we started kissing again and I told you I wanted to stop, would you?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
“I’m not being coerced, this isn’t transference, and you’re not taking advantage. I don’t care if it’s still fucked up. I want this.”  
  
When Reid pressed his mouth to Morgan’s again, the man slowly responded, one hand stroking along his back to rest on the dip in his spine, the other ran along his thigh. Reid kissed him more needily, opening his mouth and running his tongue along Morgan’s bottom lip. The older man could feel the need in his sudden sexual partner rising quickly, desperate as he tried to wiggle out of the oversized sweatpants. Morgan didn’t try to slow him, didn’t think it would be right to dictate the specifics of the encounter when Reid was getting his first taste of sexual freedom in so long. Instead he helped him pull the material away, freeing his erection.  
  
He was stubbly from where he’d been shaved, and on his groin just beside the base of his shaft was a small crucifix branded into his skin. Morgan brushed his finger over it as Reid kissed his jaw line, and gently grazed his palm over the man’s cock.  
  
“Yes,” Reid whispered, seeking Morgan’s mouth again. He got the message and wrapped his hand around the man’s erection, stroking slowly. Reid keened and pressed closer, crushing their mouths together and gripping Morgan’s neck as though he thought the man might disappear from beneath his hands. It only took a couple of minutes of stroking before Reid was writhing in Morgan’s lap, back bumping the steering wheel as he thrust his hips back and forth.  
  
He buried his covered face in Morgan’s neck as he came, emptying his semen onto Morgan’s hand and the front of his shirt.  
  
“Too fast,” he muttered breathlessly, “I’m sorry.”  
  
“It’s okay,” Morgan soothed, still stroking him gently to ease him down from his orgasm. A few seconds later, Reid was sobbing into his neck. “Spencer? Are you okay?” His throat felt tight with the worry that Reid regretted what had just happened, that he had felt coerced, and he ran a soothing hand over the man’s back as he shook.  
  
“I’m sorry,” he said between great heaving sobs. “Not you. Not your fault.” He took several deep breaths, attempting to calm himself. It worked a little, but the tears and shaking sobs kept coming.   
  
“I’ve had sex hundreds of times in the last two years,” he murmured, and Morgan knew that meant hundreds of times he’d been forced, hundreds of times he’d been raped. He wrapped the arm around the man’s middle and pulled him closer, extracting his other hand from between them and wiping it discreetly on his pant leg.  
  
“I can’t remember the last time I had an orgasm,” Reid whispered, and Morgan felt his chest tighten because that was so easy. Penises were notoriously easy to please, orgasm wasn’t hard for most people with them. The idea that Reid, who had come apart so quickly under his hand hadn’t had that – been allowed to have that - in years made him both upset and furious.   
  
“I’m sorry for crying.” Reid said eventually, once the tears had mostly stopped. “I suppose that’s killed your erection.” Reid reached for Morgan’s belt, but Morgan gently pushed his hands away.  
  
“We’ve been in one place for too long.” When Reid pulled away, and Morgan could see damp spots on the fabric of the blindfold, he leant forward to press a reassuring kiss to the man’s jaw. “We’ll get off the road, find a place. A motel for the night. I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry and dying for a hot shower. And I’m gonna crash this car if I don’t get some proper sleep soon. What do you say?”  
  
“Sounds great,” Reid said, smiling genuinely even as his body shivered with a last residual sob, and he leaned briefly back into the full body contact they’d had.  
  
Neither of them could know that at that moment, a car was pulling up to the abandoned one left with two dead men with missing guns, and promises of revenge were being made.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgan and Reid stop at a motel.

They found a motel by the time the sun went down, one that didn’t ask questions for the right price. The room was small, dated and musty, but clean with a double bed and a bathroom attached. He led Reid into the room with his hand on the small of his back, keeping him from bumping into anything.   
  
“You use the bathroom first. Take your time,” Morgan said, leading him around to the doorway. “I won’t put the light on, so you can take off the blindfold and adjust. Just make sure you put it on when you come out, okay?”  
  
“Thanks.”  
  
Morgan listened as the man locked the door, and a while later the shower turned on. The walls were thin and he could hear the man’s footsteps and a muttered ‘fuck’, and he felt like he was intruding, so he turned on the small television in the motel room. He rolled down the blind over the window and began to empty his pockets and onto the small wooden tablet; cigarettes, a lighter, phone, wallet, a clip of money and a clip of bullets for his main weapon. He’d also brought in his weapon and the two he’d taken from their pursuers. He’d also brought in the medical kit, and opened it before he took his shirt off to inspect the bullet graze on his side. It stung, but it was a flesh wound, and he’d be able to clean it when he got in the shower.  
  
He picked up his phone and opened it to flick through his contacts, hesitating on Emily's number and then later Penelope’s, knowing he couldn’t call to find out if they’d got out fine, in case the line was compromised. It was likely if they’d made their exit that they’d disposed of their phones, anyway.  
  
He was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of the bathroom door opening, and Reid stepped out, blindfold back in place, hair damp and a towel around his waist, holding his clothes in his hand. The wounds on his wrist looked a lot better, and weren’t bleeding any longer.  
  
“There’s clean clothes in the bag on the bed,” Morgan said as he crossed the room. “You okay?”  
  
“Yeah,” he sighed. “Much better.”  
  
Morgan lightly touched the man’s shoulder as he passed him. “I’ll be out soon.”  
  
The bathroom was small and warm, full of steam from prior use. He noted the dressings Reid had taken off his wrists, bloody in the trash can under the sink. Morgan shed the rest of his clothing and climbed into the shower, stepping into the stream of water when it was at the right temperature and letting it fall over his head. He braced an arm on the wall and rested his forehead on the tile, using his other to gently clean his wound, watching as the water swirled around the drain streaked with blood. Now he was still, he registered how much his body hurt from a mixture of driving and exertion.   
  
He closed his eyes as he remembered the last time he’d seen them: Emily had just cut her hair into a bob that ended at her jaw and wasn’t sure if she liked it. Penelope’s internet business had just won several awards for best start up project. Their little boy Lucas had just told them he wanted to grow his hair out ‘long like Marley’ after sitting through a documentary on Bob Marley. Their new child, Clara, was growing strong, an alert five month old.  
  
When he came out of the bathroom with a towel around his waist, the room was empty. With a jolt of panic, he hurried over to the bed to find a set of the clean clothes he’d laid out gone, as well as a pair of sneakers, his wallet, car keys, and the money clip from the table and one of the guns.  
  
“Shit,” he hissed, hitting his forehead with the heel of his hand. He should have known it was too easy, should have anticipated that the man would get scared and do a runner.  
  
He heard someone opening the door he rushed for the table, grabbing one of the guns and levelling it. On the other side Reid stood, with one hand pulling the edge of his blindfold down into place, the other holding a plastic bag.  
  
“Reid?”  
  
“I didn’t think it would take me this long to-” he paused, feeling his way into the room and clearly registering the tension in Morgan’s voice. “Didn’t you see my note?”  
  
“Your note?”  
  
“On the TV.”  
  
Morgan looked, and sure enough, there was a note folded on the top of it. He crossed the room as Reid shut the door and took the note to read it.  
  
 _‘Gone across the street for Chinese food, be back soon’_  
  
“I didn’t see this,” he admitted.  
  
“And you thought I’d run?”  
  
“Logical conclusion, when you took money and keys.”  
  
“I checked your wallet, you only had a ten so I took the clip,” Reid said as he felt his way to the tablet and took out the aforementioned items. “I got soda and smokes too.” He paused again, and suddenly his body language changed, his shoulders scrunching defensively. “Is-is that okay?”  
  
“Yeah,” Morgan said, frowning with concern at the man anticipating his anger, “it’s fine, kid.”  
  
“Oh.” He relaxed visibly. “I didn’t take your keys, though.”  
  
They turned out to have slipped onto the chair that was pushed under the table. As he got dry and dressed Morgan watched as Reid slipped out of the sneakers and began to unpack the bag, feeling for the edge of the table so nothing fell off. The man held out a carton of food and Morgan took it, gently linking his other hand around the man’s wrist to lead him to the bed.  
  
“Sorry you can’t watch the TV,” Morgan said as they tucked into the food.  
  
“It’s okay. You still think we might get found, don’t you?”  
  
“I’m preparing for the worst. If they find us and think you’re cooperating they’ll hurt you or kill you. If they think I’ve, I dunno, stolen you to be my sex slave, they might not.” The words, even in a hypothetical made his skin crawl. “And If I get away, you won’t be able to identify me.”  
  
“If they find us again, I don’t think it would matter,” Reid said, as he reached between them to take a spring roll from the box. “I didn’t have much access to the apparatus I would have required at my last place, but if my new owner is as sadistic as rumoured I should come across something I could use to commit suicide sooner rather than later.”  
  
“You’d do that? Kill yourself?”  
  
“I told you what this guy would do.”  
  
“Yeah,” Morgan nodded, “you did.”  
  
“When you’re living like that, suicidal ideation becomes normal,” Reid said, almost conversationally. “There’s no measure of normalcy anymore; men are using your body like you’re an object. No, like a person. They know you’re a person, a living, breathing, sentient person. But you’re their person. They own every last inch of you.”  
  
Morgan couldn’t take his eyes of the man as he talked. As sick as it made him feel, he had no intention of stopping him. Talking was healing, and Spencer was hurt beyond measure. Reid stabbed at his noodles with a plastic fork, his chopsticks lying untouched between them.  
  
“Wanting to die becomes normal. It becomes a dream, a fantasy, because most slaves don’t have the opportunity to actually do it. You can’t even make the choice to end your own life. You try to hang yourself, they take your sheets or your bed. You try to cut yourself with something, they tie you up. You try to bash your head on the walls or floor, they restrain you, or stick you in a padded room. And they punish you. Some tell their slaves if they obey, if they’re good, that they’ll free them some day. Some don’t want you to accept being there, they want you to fight. Most sexual sadists can’t get off with a willing victim, so they’re the ones that tell slaves they’re going to die. Sociopaths are more common; they like twisting their victims into someone who will do anything sexually by creating dependency. Like a lot of models of intimate partner violence.”  
  
“You know a lot about this,” Morgan said. “I mean, even for someone who’s been through it.”  
  
“I wanted to become a Profiler.”  
  
“A profiler?”  
  
“They profile behaviour of criminals to catch them. Serial killers, rapists, terrorists.”  
  
“Wow,” Morgan said, impressed.  
  
“And what about you?” Reid asked, mouth full of noodles. “You haven’t done this all your life, have you?”  
  
“I wanted to go to college, but I couldn’t get a scholarship. Juvenile criminal record. My mom couldn’t afford to send me, so I started out as a legitimate courier. Then my younger sister wanted to go to college, and someone said I could make some more money running things off the books. After a few years I was in deep. I stopped talking to my family; I think they were ashamed of me, because they knew what I was doing wasn’t legal. And it was easier to protect them if I didn’t have contact with them. I thought once I was done, once I had enough money saved to give us a comfortable life, I’d get back in contact. I guess I can’t now, without putting them at risk.”  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“Not your fault. Even if I wasn’t helping you, I think they’d try to get rid of me anyway to clear up the mess.”  
  
Reid lifted a hand to scratch at the edge of his blindfold, and Morgan fought the urge to reach across and untie it. As much as he wanted to, as much as he wanted to completely humanise the man sitting next to him, he knew if they were found that Reid stood a better chance of not being killed on the spot or punished if he seemed to be an unwilling captive. At least maybe then one of them would make it out of this alive.  
  
“I’m not going to let them take you back, you know,” Morgan said into the hush. He couldn’t promise it, and they both knew it.  
  
Reid made a little amused sound, and he was smiling. “Thanks.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reid is still blindfolded when he wakes up in Morgan's arms.

When Reid woke up and turned his body against Morgan’s, blindfold still in place, and snuggled into his chest, the man didn’t tell him how fretful he’d been in the night. The fact the man had nightmares didn’t surprise him, nor did his request to leave the bathroom light on and the door ajar.  
  
“Morning,” Reid murmured, kissing the other man’s collarbone. “I haven’t slept that well in years. And we didn’t have sex last night.”  
  
“We fell asleep practically straight after food,” Morgan said.   
  
“I’m warped,” Reid said into his skin. “My experience has warped me. I was actually surprised when I woke up and you hadn’t just had sex with me while I slept. I’m sorry.”  
  
Morgan closed his eyes and took a long breath in through his nose. He couldn’t bring himself to be offended, considering what the man had been through. “It’s okay.”  
  
“I shouldn’t trust you.” With more strength than seemed possible, Reid pushed Morgan onto his back and straddled his hips, easing his palms down flat against the man’s torso, one right over his steady heartbeat. “But even a good person would have given me up to survive. A good person would have given me a head start and got as far away from me as possible. You’re... you’re ridiculous.”  
  
“Thanks?” Morgan put his hands on the man’s knees, stroking slowly up his thighs, hoping it was a reassuring motion.  
  
“Seeing as we already established I’m capable of giving informed consent yesterday, can we have sex?”  
  
It wasn’t awkward, but there was something distinctly strange about the man’s frankness. He lacked any sense of timing or tack in his sexual propositions; Morgan supposed that captivity and sexual slavery played a part in that. There was a part of him that thought it was wrong to be engaging him that way at all, but denying him his agency seemed worse. It wasn’t as if he was letting the man interact with him in a sexual way without any other feelings there; from the moment they’d started talking, Morgan had found himself increasingly attracted to him. What that said about him, he didn’t want to dwell on.  
  
“Only if it’s what you want.”  
  
“I want.” Reid rocked his hips a little, drawing attention to his hardening erection. “You want me to ride you?”  
  
“I want you to call the shots.”  
  
“Oh,” Reid sounded knowingly, turning his chin up a little, “you want me to boss you around.”  
  
“Spencer,” he said patiently, “I’m serious. I want you to do what you want, and only what you want. Don’t worry about me. If I don’t like it I’ll say, yeah?”  
  
“Okay.” He leaned down, seeking Morgan’s lips with his own and kissing him softly, a much more reserved action than the previous day. “Kissing,” he said, “I’ve missed kissing.”  
  
His lips tasted sweet from the soda the night before, and as he realised that Morgan was indeed letting him lead he seemed to melt into the contact, his body surging against the other man’s, one hand on his shoulder and the other touching the side of his head, rubbing his thumb across his short shaven hair. Briefly Morgan wondered if it was long enough for the man to deduce that he was black from the feel of it, then decided he had more pressing concerns as Reid took his bottom lip between his teeth and bit down gently. He groaned and Reid licked the hurt away, pressing his tongue forward, gently seeking passage. Morgan let him dictate the depth of the kiss, one hand still on his thigh and the other rubbing slowly up and down his back.  
  
They lost their shirts at Reid’s insistence, Morgan pushing himself up into a sitting position and holding Reid in his lap as they continued to kiss.  
  
“Can I lay you down, Spencer?” Morgan asked. “So I can reach more of you. You can tell me exactly what you want.”  
  
“Uh huh.”  
  
Reid settled back against the pillows in the warm morning light filtering in through the blinds as Morgan kissed down his chest and eased his sweatpants away from his hips. There were marks dotted across his torso; a few bruises that would heal and scars that already had. Morgan kissed every one, tracing his lips along the lines and pressing his tongue to the marks. The man’s cock was hard and waiting, a drop of precum dotted on his belly.  
  
“You okay with this?” Morgan asked, breath ghosting across the man’s shaft.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Morgan smiled at him even though the man couldn’t see it, and flicked out his tongue to take the dab of fluid. Then he touched his tongue to the head of Reid’s cock, and the man gasped and a shiver ran through his body.  
  
“You okay, kid?”  
  
Reid nodded, and Morgan continued, putting his lips on the man’s hot flesh and kissing his way slowly down his cock. He spread a reassuring hand over the man’s bony hip as he took his shaft in hand, lifting it and sucking the head into his mouth. He was firm but careful, not wanting the man to associate him in any way with the abuse he had clearly suffered. He drew back with pursed lips and then licked a slow trail from the bottom to the tip, then repeated the motion with the broad flat of his tongue.  
  
“How many?” Reid breathed, hips lifting a little.  
  
“How many what?” Morgan asked, briefly looking up from his task to read the man’s body language.  
  
“I don’t know. How many times have you done this? How many men have you had sex with? How many times have you been in this position? I-”  
  
Morgan pushed his hand slowly up Reid’s torso, stroking his stomach as he realised the man needed reassurance.   
  
“Maybe a dozen men. More women,” he said as he stroked the man’s length. “This? I don’t give head to guys a lot.”  
  
“You don’t like it?”  
  
“I really like it,” Morgan said, making his point by swiping his tongue out against the head of the man’s cock. “Just not with guys in bars. Only boyfriends.”  
  
Reid’s breath hitched. “Boyfriends?”  
  
Morgan didn’t know what to say, because committing to such a title was too fast and too irrational, so instead he went back to sucking the man’s cock into his mouth. Reid’s hands were fisting in the sheets and Morgan pushed and pulled his lips along the shaft, twisting his tongue around the head and adding suction.  
  
“Stop, please. Going to cum too soon.”  
  
“There’s no too soon, Spencer,” Morgan reassured him.  
  
“Don’t want to cum like that.”  
  
Morgan kept stroking the man’s cock gently as he eased his was up the man’s body again. “How do you want to cum then?”  
  
“You inside me.”  
  
“You don’t want that.”  
  
“I do.”  
  
“No, you don’t,” Morgan insisted gently. “You’re shaking, and I know what it’s like when you’re just saying you want it to get it over with. I... I know.”  
  
Reid gripped the man by the neck and brought him down for a blind kiss, whether it acknowledged Morgan’s inference or not he couldn’t be sure.  
  
“I do want that. Something. I want to remember that it can feel good.”  
  
“We can start slow. Wait here.”  
  
He left the bed to go to his bag, finding the bottle of lube in it and bringing it back to the bed, where he pressed it against the man’s hand so he understood what he’d gone to fetch.  
  
“You have lube?” Reid asked.  
  
“Always prepared. I was never a boyscout, though. C’mon.” He took Reid’s hand and squeezed out a dollop of lube onto his middle finger, and spread it down the man’s digit.  
  
“What are you doing?”  
  
“Starting slow,” he said gently as he guided the man’s hand down between his legs. “You can make it feel real good, you don’t need someone else if you don’t want.”  
  
At his encouragement he felt Reid gently move around his own puckered entrance, little circles as he breathed slowly and deliberately. After a while he pressed, breeching his own body and pushing his finger into himself. He groaned and his body thrummed, clinging again to Morgan’s neck with his other hand. He must have crooked his finger then, because he gasped and arched, toes curling.  
  
“Feel good?”  
  
“Yes.” Reid nodded. He was breathless quickly, moving the finger in and out of himself, stroking it over his prostate repeatedly, Morgan’s hand just cradling instead of still guiding. It was a sight to see, to watch someone pleasure themselves, especially someone who hadn’t been able to use their body for pleasure for a long time, instead forced to use it to satisfy someone else even when he didn’t want to.  
  
“Derek, please,” the man groaned. “I want your hand.”  
  
“Okay pretty boy,” Morgan kissed his mouth, his chin, then his cheek just below the blindfold. He spread lube over his middle finger and replaced Reid’s own, which was instead pressing along his perineum. He moaned at the new invasion, not as spindly as his own fingers, thicker and more confident in the movements. Reid sought a kiss and Morgan gave it, long fingers wrapping around his wrist as if he was afraid the pleasurable stimulation would stop.  
  
“I can feel your erection,” Reid panted.  
  
“Sorry.” Morgan tried to move his hips back from where his clothed crotch was pressing against the man’s naked thigh.  
  
“It’s okay, I-” he groaned, hand slipping off Morgan’s neck and down his front, reaching below the waistband of his sweats to grasp his cock. “This is really getting you aroused? Touching me?”  
  
“Yeah,” Morgan groaned.   
  
“Take them off?”  
  
Morgan gently extracted his finger, to a disappointed groan even though the man had requested it. He pulled back enough to get out off his pants, and then climbed back onto the bed, kneeling between Reid’s open legs, the bottle of lube in hand again.  
  
“You want my fingers back in you?”  
  
“No,” Reid pushed himself onto his elbows, and reached one hand out until he touched Morgan’s chest, using it to guide himself to the man’s hand and take the lube from him. “You’re right, I don’t want to be penetrated with a penis yet. And you feel quite big.”  
  
“Yeah,” Morgan grinned sheepishly, rubbing the man’s knees.  
  
“I’m scared I’m going to die before I get to experience sex as pleasure again instead of sex as a weapon.”  
  
Morgan was glad the man couldn’t see him, and couldn’t possibly know how much that resonated with him. He fought the feeling that rose in his chest and instead waited for the man’s action. After a moment he flipped the cap of the lube and squeezed a sparing amount onto his hand, put the bottle down and then found Morgan’s cock. He spread lube over it with one twisting stroke, and then grabbed himself and did the same. The older got the idea, and eased down, angling their cocks together and mimicking a sex position, hands either side of Reid’s torso. He had different ideas, it seemed, because he swiped out his elbows and knocked the man’s arms off balance, and wrapped his own arms around his torso, bringing him down closer. Morgan obliged, fitting himself against the thin man, stroking a hand down his side as he began to rock his hips, the other hand cradling his face and angling him for a kiss. Reid wrapped his legs around the back of Morgan’s knees and kept him close, hands splayed over his back.  
  
They fell into an easy rhythm, bodies slick and damp from exertion, kissing and panting as they moved.  
  
“Please,” Reid whispered, “please don’t stop.”  
  
Morgan didn’t, increasing the pressure of his hips against the other, encouraged by the increasing sounds of need. Reid’s hips moved erratically and it didn’t take long before he came, keening as he emptied between them. The sight, the sound, the feel of it against him was too much for Morgan, who was careful not to move too harshly as his orgasm overtook him too, grinding his hips down against the other man.  
  
“Fuck,” he muttered as Reid brushed his jaw along Morgan’s bearded one, breath shuddering. He was almost expecting it, but when Reid started to cry he felt his heart jolt.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Reid’s breath hitched, and he clung tighter. “This is pathetic.”  
  
“No it’s not,” Morgan reassured. “With what you’ve been through, it’s understandable.”  
  
“I didn’t think it could ever feel good again.”  
  
“It can, and it will,” he said softly, kissing the man’s neck.  
  
“It did. That felt so good.”  
  
They lay together for a while, naked and wrapped around each other as they kissed softly. Eventually neither could stand the messy warmth and pulled apart.  
  
“We’ve got time for a real quick shower, then we need to hit the road.”  
  
“How far have we got to go?”  
  
“Maybe a day.” Morgan rolled his shoulders as he sat on the edge of the bed. “You go first, I’ll pack.”  
  
Reid wrapped his arms around the man’s middle, laying his face against the top of the man’s back. Morgan smiled and leaned into the contact, touching the man’s arms. He felt words bubble in his throat, promises and assurances, but he didn’t know if any of them were true. 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their respite ends very quickly.

When they got back on the road, the journey quickly became less and less desolate as they drove through towns. Traffic increased, and the freedom the open road offered was lost. It meant they were getting closer, but it also put them at more risk of someone taking interest in them. If the police stopped them, even routinely, it was over; Morgan would be taken into custody, Reid too, and likely bailed by his captor.  
  
“Derek?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Do you believe in God?” Spencer asked.  
  
Morgan answered honestly. “No.”  
  
“You kept touching the crucifix brand on my groin this morning.”  
  
“Sorry.”  
  
“It’s okay. I just wondered if I was giving you a crisis of faith.”  
  
“No risk of that,” Morgan sighed.  
  
“He was religious,” Reid said. “The man who owned me. And I knew the Bible; I have a good memory, an eidetic memory. His father used to ask me for passages, and if I got them wrong he’d punish me. But I didn’t get them wrong, so he started only quizzing me after I’d been forced to stay awake for days. Once I was confused enough I’d have to get them wrong. I didn’t believe. But I prayed for a while. Prayed to die. Nobody answered.”  
  
Morgan shifted in his seat; he knew what it was like to pray to a God he didn’t believe in out of pure desperation. He knew what it was like to not get an answer.  
  
“This morning, when you said you knew what it was like to want to get something over with,” Spencer paused, turning his blindfolded face towards the driver’s seat, “get sex over with, what did you mean?”  
  
Morgan took a long drag of his cigarette, briefly considering the man. “When I was a kid...” he said finally, unable to elaborate further, and regretting saying anything immediately. He was making himself vulnerable, more vulnerable than he’d ever been. To his credit, Reid seemed to understand what he was getting at, and he reached out for one of Morgan’s hands, dragging it towards him so he could gently kiss the palm.  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
“Don’t thank me yet,” Morgan said as he checked the wing mirror again, frowning. “There’s a car that’s been following us for the last forty minutes.”  
  
“Are you sure?” Reid sat up straighter, reaching to touch the gun wedged under his leg.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Can you lose them?”  
  
“If I start driving erratically, they’re gonna know we’ve spotted them. But they’re not gonna do anything with this much traffic around, or the cops’ll swoop in.”  
  
“We need to lose them.” Reid’s voice had a new note of panic, and his hand was still on the gun.  
  
“We’re almost into the city, we might be able to shake them.” He reached across, and squeezed the man’s knee. “Don’t panic yet, kid.”  
  
That was easier said than done in a city he didn’t know, and every turn he made the car was still following, a few cars behind. He made several quick turns, and found himself entering an underground parking lot.  
  
“We need to change cars again.”  
  
“How are we meant to do that?”  
  
“We’re in a garage. They didn’t see us pull in, but they’ll double back when they realise they’ve lost us. If I park the car and we hotwire one we can get out of here, and then we’ll dump it as soon as we can.”  
  
“You know how to hotwire a car, right?”  
  
“Of course,” Morgan said, turning into the first empty parking space. “Get out, we’ve gotta move.”   
  
He grabbed the bag from the backseat and hurried around the other side, taking Reid by the upper arm and leading him away from the car, keeping his eyes open for a model of car he knew he could hotwire quickly. He saw one that looked promising at the opposite side of the parking lot, and ducked between two cars, urging Reid to stay low. They’d have to hurry across an open area to reach it, and they didn’t have time to waste.  
  
“C’mon,” Morgan urged, hurrying out into the roadway.  
  
The first gunshot hit something metal; Morgan realised it was an elevator door before he wheeled around, faced with the car that had been tailing them with a man aiming a gun out of the window; aiming at them. He knew what was coming, and blocked from their sight he grabbed the gun Reid had in the back of his pants and then pushed him so hard he went tumbling to the ground with a yell.  
  
“Mr Breitkopf sends his regards,” said the anonymous armed assailant.  
  
After the first bullet hit him in the arm he wasn’t sure how many times he was hit again, forced back against the metal door, noise and pain the only thing he could register. The elevator door. He reached out blindly until his fingers caught on something, and mercifully the doors dinged open, and he tumbled backwards into the elevator, hitting the bar hard with the small of his back. Another shot rang out as he smashed his palm against the elevator buttons, the effort forcing him to his knees as the doors shut and the elevator began to move.  
  
He looked down at himself, saw the blood seeping from his arm and thigh, and his shoulder seared with pain. But Reid was blindfolded and unarmed, and he hoped savvy enough to pretend he’d been Morgan’s prisoner, so they wouldn’t kill him for trying to escape. He didn’t want to dwell on what he’d condemned him to.  
  
When Morgan had managed to pull himself to his feet and the elevator doors opened, he was at a lower level, in some kind of service area. He stumbled out, reaching for the phone in his back pocket. He dialled the first number he could think of as he slumped against the wall, clutching at the wound on his leg.  
  
“I need your help,” he ground out when the phone was answered.  
  
 _“Morgan, are you okay?”_  
  
“I’m hurt.”  
  
 _“Where are you?”_  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“How badly hurt are you?”  
  
“I’ve been shot. Twice, I think.”  
  
 _“Keep this call going, I’ll find your location. I’ve got your back, stay put.”_  
  
Morgan couldn’t keep hold of the phone, because he was still bleeding, and let it clatter to the cold floor beside him as he kept putting pressure on his leg, and then his arm. His shoulder hurt badly, and he suspected he’d been shot three times instead of the twice he’d originally thought. Every second that went past, he expected the men who had followed them to come down in the elevator to finish the job, and every second he felt weaker. He tried to get up, but his body was having none of it. He gritted his teeth against the pain and waited, trying not to linger on thoughts of what was happening to Reid.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone comes to Morgan's rescue, and he plans a rescue of his own.

Morgan woke with very little recollection of what had happened, his recall blurred by pain. He was on a couch in a very suburban living room, and he ached. He was only in his boxers under a blanket, with medical dressings on his thigh, arm and shoulder. The clink of coffee cups drew his attention, and he looked up to see the striking petite form of an old friend.  
  
“You’re a lucky bastard, Morgan,” JJ said, handing him a mug. An ex-government deep cover agent who had faked a pregnancy while infiltrating a Neo-Nazi group with ties to domestic terrorism, Morgan had met JJ through Garcia after she’d gone into witness protection.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Your shoulder was a through-and-through. I got the bullets out of your leg and your arm without doing any more damage. The shot to your leg only just missed your femoral artery. If you’re after a ride on the Pennsylvania Pony, this is a pretty dangerous way to go about getting a sympathy fuck.”  
  
“JJ,” he sighed, giving her a serious look. She frowned back at him, one hand on her hip as she sipped her coffee.  
  
“What the hell have you gotten yourself into, then?”  
  
Morgan sighed, smoothing the blanket down over his lap and put the mug down on the coffee table. “I was transporting something which turned out to be a person. A guy, Spencer. One thing led to another and now I need to get out of dodge as soon as possible.”  
  
“Early retirement?” JJ gave a small laugh. “Well, you can crash here until you can move.”  
  
“I’m not staying.”  
  
“Morgan, you got shot, you’re not going anywhere.”  
  
“I have to,” Morgan said. “The men who shot me took Spencer.”  
  
“So?” JJ shrugged. “Not your problem, and you’re lucky to be alive.”  
  
“He’s been sold into sexual slavery, JJ.”  
  
“It’s still not your problem.”  
  
“I promised I’d get him out.”  
  
“What?” It was JJ’s turn to sigh. “Why the hell would you do that? You can’t make a promise like that. You can’t save everyone, Morgan.”  
  
“I can save him,” Morgan muttered. “But I need your help. Well, I need Garcia, but she’s run. Which is my fault.”  
  
Softening, JJ crossed around the coffee table so she could put a hand on his shoulder. “Emily and Penelope know what they’re doing. They’ll be fine.”  
  
JJ found him some new clothes to wear, and didn’t comment when he made the painful journey from the couch to her office, and sat heavily in the chair next to her as programs started and beeped.  
  
“Lucky for you, Garcia taught me plenty of tricks. Tell me what you need.”  
  
“I need to find a location and a person. I need you to do some very illegal things.”  
  
“Just give me stuff to go on, let me worry about the law,” JJ urged, her fingers poised over keys and they both hoped this time the protections the programs offered would keep them from being traced and arrested.  
  
“The drop location for the delivery I had was a warehouse on the east docks. I figure the buyer wouldn’t keep Spencer there, but take him to a secondary location, but he’d have to be comfortable enough to have something like that dropped there.”  
  
“So maybe he owns property there. Gimme more.”  
  
“The men who shot me mentioned a name: bright-cough? What do you think?”  
  
“Breitkopf,” JJ said, typing, “German. Pretty unusual. Okay, nothing is coming up with ownership. What else can you give me?”  
  
“Spencer said he was known on the scene as ‘The Spear,’ that he runs illegal trading on organs and stuff.”  
  
JJ didn’t seem to be listening, but she was typing, eye intent on the screens and head bobbing slightly as if to an internal drumbeat. Finally she stopped, casting her eyes across to him briefly.  
  
“Maybe this is something. Spearhead Industries is a manufacturing firm owned by Frank Breitkopt. His company owns several warehouses on the east docks. He’s married to a Jane Breitkopt nee Hanratty, no children. No criminal record, no flags on his financials...”  
  
“He’s not gonna take Spencer to his office, the business is probably legit for the most part. And he’s not gonna take him to his house, right? His wife probably doesn’t know.”  
  
“Really? You think she wouldn’t know there was something up with a guy like this?”  
  
“There’s a lot of ways to twist someone you’ve got power over around your fingers. She probably doesn’t want to know.”  
  
“Jeez, probably not,” JJ winced as she looked across at a secondary screen. “I ran Jane through here, she’s been into the emergency room four times in the last decade with injuries bad enough to be flagged as suspicious. Nothing was followed up.”   
  
“She probably knows not to ask about his business,” Morgan murmured, taking in all the information on screen that he could. “See if he has any secondary properties.”  
  
“Nothing,” JJ said, then, “nothing he owns, anyway. But looking at these records, there’s a house that used to belong to his mother, which now Jane owns.”  
  
“You think she has any idea?”  
  
“Maybe. But if you look at these places,” JJ said as she pulled up a map with the locations of the warehouses, the Spearhead offices and Breitkopf’s home plotted on them. “They’re all within fifteen miles of each other. The house Jane owns is well outside of that zone, fifty miles or so. And public record shows it had work done about ten years ago, but it’s never been rented. I mean maybe it has, but if he’s fronting as legit then he’d declare any income from it. And it’s never been listed as for sale.”  
  
“That’s where he is,” Morgan said surely. “That’s where he’s taken Spencer.”  
  
“What if it isn’t?”  
  
“Then he’s as good as dead, sooner or later.”  
  
“Are you sure he isn’t dead already? If he was with you, they might have just killed him as bad stock.” JJ cringed at her own choice of words, but Morgan understood.  
  
“I don’t know. I have to try.”  
  
She led Morgan out of the room into another, and a locked box under a bed containing several firearms. She knelt and handed a pistol with sight, holster and several clips to Morgan.  
  
“Want anything else?”  
  
“Give me another handgun, and that taser,” he said, and she handed them to him. “And I need a phone and a car.”  
  
“I can do that. But I expect extra for late payment, and the risk I’m taking that you’ll die anyway and I won’t get paid at all.”  
  
Morgan laughed. “Such faith in me.”  
  
“Is this guy worth it?” JJ asked as she straightened up, still giving him her usual sceptical look.  
  
“He’s a human being. He deserves to be free.”  
  
“Nothing more to it?”  
  
“That’s beside the point-” Morgan started.  
  
“Knew it. So this is your fairy tale ending, huh?”  
  
“This isn’t a fairy tale,” Morgan snapped. “He’s in danger, and I am not leaving him to be some sick bastard’s fuck toy.”  
  
“Okay.” She held her hands up in surrender. “I just don’t want you to get killed. I don’t want your hero complex to get you killed. Only you, Morgan. Only you could walk away from everything to run drugs and god knows what else, but never lose the hero complex.”  
  
As Morgan strapped on the holster, he ignored her assertion. “In two hours, I need you to call in an anonymous tip to the sex trafficking team at the FBI, and call the police to the second house. They’re probably tracking this guy, or whatever he’s involved in.”  
  
“You should be out of there by then, right?”  
  
“That’s the plan.”  
  
JJ closed the distance between them, a hand on the back of his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. Morgan was more than a little surprised, and didn’t respond, but didn’t pull away either. As her lips left his, she stroked his cheek, looking at him more fondly than she had the entire time she’d been with him.  
  
“That was for luck. Don’t die.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgan finds Reid, but he might be too late to stop the worst.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can listen to my LADTW playlist [here](http://8tracks.com/justjasper/live-and-die-this-way).

He wasn’t sure he’d given himself enough time to make it to the location with having to navigate and the fact he hurt all over. His arm ached especially, a throbbing pain, and he had to concentrate to keep it on the steering wheel. He forced himself to keep going, because if he had the location wrong, Reid was dead for sure, whether by his captors’ hand or his own.  
  
The address was in a nice suburban neighbourhood, full of white picket fences and neat front gardens. Nothing about the location gave away the unspeakable horrors that countless people had likely faced at the hands of Frank Breitkopf.  
  
The address Morgan had come to was shaded by trees, sheltered from the view from the road. It was little surprise, but it was also an advantage. There was another car parked close by, and Morgan wished he’d had the presence of mind to find out what cars the man owned. He grabbed the baseball cap from the seat beside him and put it on, drawing it low on his brow, pulled on a pair of gloves and then picked up the empty cardboard box, hoping not to draw attention to himself, that anyone who saw him would think he was delivering something.  
  
The front yard was plain neat grass, immaculately kept, with a straight path to the front porch; as Morgan walked it, he slipped his handgun out of the holster under his jacket and held it behind the box he was carrying. He knocked and waited, head down, taking in a long slow breath.  
  
“Can I help you?” the drawling male voice came. Morgan looked up, and already he could see Breitkopt, who was a greying man in his fifties, tall and strong with a cold face, registering that something was wrong; no expected package, no clipboard, and then suddenly a gun with a long silencer pointed at his chest.  
  
“Back up,” Morgan growled. The man did, raising his hands in front of him in a caricature of fear, but there was no fear on his features, and when he spoke it was calm and collected.  
  
“You don’t have to do this-” he said as Morgan kicked the door closed behind him and threw aside the box.  
  
“Frank Breitkopf?”  
  
“Take what you want, you don’t need to use the gun. I’m no threat.”  
  
“No,” Morgan said in agreement, slowly and deliberately lowering his gun aim to the man’s crotch. “You won’t ever be again when I leave here.”  
  
Briefly Morgan scanned the room, looking for any sign of Reid. “Where do you keep them?”  
  
“Keep what?” he said, false confusion lacing his tone.  
  
Morgan knew time was getting away from him, so he reached out and grabbed the man’s collar, pressing the gun to his back. He moved through the hall to what he assumed was a door that led down to a basement, and it was locked.  
  
“Open it.”  
  
“The key is in the kitchen,” Breitkopf growled. Morgan dragged him in the direction, and he looked around for maybe a key hook on the wall as the man struggled, managing to elbow him hard in the chest.  
  
“Stop struggling!” Morgan barked, grabbing a handful of the man’s hair and pulling his head back. “You think I’m not serious?” Pulling the man’s head back further to keep him prone, he aimed the pistol downwards and shot Breitkopf in the foot. The man screamed in pain, losing his footing and slipping on the kitchen tile, now streaked with blood from his foot.  
  
“I think you can probably scream all you want,” Morgan growled, a pang of empathy catching him out in the face of the man’s pain, despite knowing he deserved so much more. “You’ve gotta have this house soundproofed, in case one of them escapes, right? Key.”  
  
“Aagh! In the draw under the microwave! Fuck!”  
  
Amongst a broken watch and a few odds and ends was a ring of several keys, and Morgan dragged the bleeding man back to the basement door and matched lock metal to key to open it. Breitkopf started to bargain as Morgan dragged him down the stairs towards another door, a much heavier duty one with three locks.  
  
“You want him? I can sell him to you! Eight thousand dollars. That’s less than I got him for. You can do what you want with him, I haven’t even touched him yet. Much.”  
  
Morgan slammed the man against the second door, grabbing him by the throat and forcefully squeezing. “He is not for sale. People are not for sale.”  
  
He let go and Breitkoft tumbled to the floor in a heap, and in the small space between the last step and the door, Morgan put his foot against the man’s neck and pressed down, keeping him restrained long enough to unlock the door. The door swung inward, to reveal a room that was something like a cross between a dungeon and a torture chamber, with a medical chair in the centre and a mirrored ceiling. It took him a moment to register to him what the mirrored ceiling meant; that whatever the man did to them, he could force them to watch. On the walls were dozens of devices, sexual and torturous, some that looked like they were meant for both. He pressed down harder for a brief moment on the man’s neck, trying to resist the temptation to choke the life out of him.   
  
As he picked Breitkopf up by his scruff again and dragged him inside, he registered a small barred cell to the right. In it there was a sink, toilet and cot, much like a prison, and on the poor excuse for a bed Reid lay face down, naked and handcuffed, and blindfolded. There were ominous smudges of red on the inside of his thighs.  
  
“He said your name,” Breitkopf said, huffing with a laugh. Morgan snapped his head around, pressing the gun to the man’s neck as rage thrummed through him. “Whimpered it like the pathetic trash he is while I broke him in, while I  _fucked_  him.”  
  
“What is my name then?” Morgan challenged dangerously. Breitkopf’s grin fades into a sneer, and Morgan threw him hard to the floor. He grabbed a pair of heavy cuffs from the wall and cuffed him around one of the cell bars, giving him a swift kick in the groin to disable him from kicking out as he unlocked the cell, the cry of pain very satisfying. Inside, Reid was attempting to turn over, and Morgan rushed to him, trying not to pay attention to the smears of blood on the thin linen below. He found the right key and unlocked the cuffs, and as soon as they were away Reid scrambled to turn around and throw his arms around Morgan’s neck.  
  
“I never said your name,” he whispered into Morgan’s skin. “I thought you were dead and I didn’t want him to know your name, didn’t want him to have it.”  
  
“I got you,” Morgan murmured, unable to explain that giving up his name was not the part of Breitkopf’s claim he wished wasn’t true.  
  
Carefully they parted, Reid sat on the cot and Morgan crouched in front, and slowly he lifted his hands to the tie at the back of his head, which kept the blindfold in place. He anticipated eyes that reflected a broken spirit to match the man’s battered and violated body, but when he pulled the fabric away he was met with big dark brown eyes. Reid took a few seconds to blink into focus, and they were so far from the lifelessness Morgan had expected.  
  
“You came for me,” Spencer said, his eyes roaming Morgan’s features, hands gently coming up to cup Morgan’s face.  
  
“I promised. Let’s get out of here.”  
  
“You didn’t,” Reid breathed. “You didn’t promise this. You said you’d try and keep them from getting me, you didn’t say you’d rescue me. You... you’re... you’re ridiculous.”  
  
“I know. C’mon, let’s go.”  
  
“He took my clothes.”  
  
“I thought of that,” Morgan said, reaching into his jacket to pull out a t-shirt and pair of boxers he’d rolled up small, and stuffed the blindfold into their place. “There are some pants and sneakers in the car.”  
  
Once Reid was dressed they moved out of the cell, keeping their distance from Breitkopf who was chained to the bars. Reid looked from his captor to his liberator, and then down at the gun the latter was holding.  
  
“Are you going to let him live?” Reid said, even as he reached up and took the gun from Morgan’s hand. Morgan watched him carefully, noting the way he was shaking.  
  
“I’ve made arrangements.” Morgan felt sick to be justifying sparing the life of a monster who had hurt Reid, raped him, and so many before. “He’s not armed.”   
  
“Yes he is,” Reid said, and lowered the gun slowly, aiming at Breitkopf’s groin. The two shots were quiet but the scream they gained was terrible, pain and anguish as the bullets obliterated his groin and disarmed him forever. Reid’s grip went slack and his breath was getting faster, and he looked scared as he turned to Morgan, leaning against him for support. Suddenly those big eyes were haunted, and he almost dropped the gun as he started to try and pull the hem of his t-shirt down farther.  
  
“I had to,” Reid said, beginning to ramble as he stumbled back, bumping into the medical chair in the middle of the room. “Even if he goes to prison, the rate at which rape occurs in prison means he’d probably-”  
  
“Hey, hey,” Morgan said soothingly, reaching for him and taking the gun out of his loose grasp. “It’s less than he deserves. But I’ve made arrangements, he might be useful alive, might lead the cops to others. It’s done. He’s never going to hurt anyone again.”  
  
Reid looked like he was about to correct Morgan, to say that there were still many ways to hurt someone, but Morgan knew. Brietkopf wailed in agony.  
  
“C’mon.” Morgan said. Reid took a step and looked like he might faint; he’d gone pale and he was shaking, so Morgan holstered the gun and scooped him up into his arms. It was over; now they just had to make their getaway, and there was no way Morgan would let Reid out of his sight until they were safe.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgan's wounds are getting worse, and it's not over.

By the time they were out of the city, Morgan could feel himself flagging behind the wheel. The pain was getting worse, and he was struggling not to let it show. Beside him Reid sat alert with nervous excitement, finally free and waiting for the last stretch to be over.  
  
“Fuck,” Morgan growled when he hit the break instead of the accelerator by mistake, jerking them forward.  
  
“Derek, are you okay?”  
  
“Fine.”  
  
“You’re lying. You’re hurt, aren’t you?” Reid peered at him, bringing a gentle hand to touch his arm. When Morgan eased away from it, Reid had his answer, and Morgan knew there was no point trying to pretend he was uninjured.  
  
“I got shot. Three times. Arm. Shoulder. Leg.”  
  
“Derek, stop the car.”  
  
“We haven’t got time-”  
  
“Stop the car, let me drive,” Reid insisted. “You clearly need to rest.”  
  
“You can drive?”  
  
“I’ve known how to drive since I was fourteen.”  
  
Begrudgingly Morgan stopped driving, and hobbled to swap sides with Reid. It was a relief, really; he didn’t think he could last much longer on his feet. He needed rest, and more medical attention; the painkillers JJ had given him were wearing off.  
  
“It’s good you came when you did,” Reid said casually. “I was coming up with a way to commit suicide. I wasn’t going to let him rape me again.”  
  
“Fuck, Spencer,” Morgan groaned, his chest tightening, “I’m sorry I didn’t reach you sooner.”  
  
“It wasn’t any worse than Hankel. I just struggled this time, so I got hurt. Not your fault; you did get shot,” he said, smiling. Morgan fought to return it, but the image of Reid on that cot, blindfolded and handcuffed and struggling as Breitkopf assaulted him came quickly and he felt his eyes prickling with angry tears. He couldn’t let himself cry; if Reid hadn’t, he certainly shouldn’t. He wondered if Reid’s eidetic memory meant he remembered exactly how many times he’d been raped; Morgan couldn’t imagine how horrific it must be to not be able to forget, to make the memories fuzzy and faded like he’d perfected.  
  
“Which way are we headed?” Reid asked, as they approached a signpost. Morgan leaned forward to look at the sign, and never got a chance to answer. Neither of them saw the SUV coming in from off the side of the road, smashing into the driver’s side with a screech of twisting metal, which set off both front airbags as the car rocked from the force of the collision.  
  
Morgan’s body lit up with pain as he felt around for his seatbelt clasp, disorientated. He gritted his teeth against the hurt and forced himself to focus, looking across at Reid, who was lolling forward against his seatbelt, unconscious.  
  
“Spencer,” he said, reaching out to shake him by the shoulder. “Kid.”  
  
Morgan’s door was wrenched open and someone reached in and grabbed him with an arm around his neck, dragged him out of the car and threw him down on the ground at the side of the road.  
  
“Hello Hermes,” the man drawled, putting his foot on his chest and holding a large knife in his hand. “Or should I say Derek Morgan?”  
  
He recognised the voice immediately; it was Foyet, the operator. He was grinning down at him, eyes hard and predatory.  
  
“You really thought we’d just let you go? That you didn’t have a tail?  _That I wouldn’t find you?_  Your dyke friends might have managed to hide for now, but trust me, I will find them. ”  
  
Foyet pressed his foot against Morgan’s wounded shoulder, making him cry out in pain, and kneeled down over the man’s chest, pressing the blade against his neck.  
  
“When I’m done with you,” his voice was low and dangerous, with the lilt of a laugh that shouldn’t be there, “I’m going to drag that boy out of the car, bend him over the bonnet and fuck him. First, with my spear,” he chuckled at his own innuendo as he thrust his groin forward to illustrate the threat, “and then with my knife. And when he begs for me to kill him, I’ll gut him and leave him next to you on the side of the road to die slowly. I think I’ll watch. Now open wide, Derek, I’m going to give you such a pretty smile...”  
  
One second he felt the cold metal against his lips and was trying to quickly decide how to limit the damage done to his mouth by the blade, and the next it was gone in a blur of movement. Reid, giving no sound of warning to give away his intent, had taken Foyet by surprise with a running tackle and pulled him off Morgan and to the side, where the men rolled away.  
  
“Spencer!” he gasped, as Foyet scrambled to bring the knife around to attack Reid, but the lithe man was faster and ready, striking out with the gun he had in his hand. It hit Foyet hard in the side of the head and Reid was able to roll them. He didn’t have the advantage for long as Foyet lashed out, and Reid yelped in pain as the blade caught him somewhere Morgan couldn’t tell, but he didn’t stop fighting.   
  
Morgan tried to move but he could taste blood, and his leg was shaking and the wound was bleeding. Reid was pinned under Foyet again and managed to pry his wrist out of the aggressor’s grasp, and pressed the pistol into Foyet’s gut as he loomed over him, and fired. Foyet howled in pain and lashed out wildly; Reid pushed the assailant off of him and unloaded the rest of the clip into the man’s torso, terrified determination on his face.   
  
Foyet made a gurgling sound as he fell to the ground, and then went quiet and still. The fresh silence on the road was broken only by Reid’s sudden panicked breathing as he bent double with the gun still in hand, trying to compose himself. He’d shot two people in the space of a few hours, maimed one and killed another. His ability to hold himself together despite that would be admirable to Morgan if his world wasn’t pain. The wounds on his shoulder and arm were bleeding again as he turned to look up at a clear blue sky. Reid crawled over to him, shaking, and when he saw the blood blossoming on the fabric of Morgan’s jacket he grimaced.  
  
“Derek, you’re gonna be okay,” he hushed as he pulled the man’s arm out of his jacket, then rolled his shirt sleeve up away from the bloody wound dressing. He reached into the jacket pocket and pulled out the blindfold scrunched in there, and tied it tightly around his arm, helping to put pressure on the wound. “C’mon,” he urged, guiding Morgan’s opposite hand to put pressure on his shoulder wound. “Keep the pressure on it, it’ll stop bleeding soon.”  
  
Reid tucked the pistol into the back of his trousers and helped to ease Morgan to his feet, taking him back to the passenger side of the car. Morgan tried to put weight on his leg but he was still shaky and leant his weight on Reid as they went.  
  
“I think it should still drive,” Reid called as he hurried around to the driver’s side and climbed inside through the window, the door smashed shut from the impact. He tried the ignition, and the car came to life. Morgan knew he must have passed out from the pain when Reid roused him asking for directions.  
  
“Fuck,” he sounded.  
  
“I assume we’re headed for the airfield?”  
  
“Yeah. I need-” he groaned as he reached into his pocket to fish out his phone. He scrolled the contacts and found that JJ had programmed the number he needed in for him, and hit dial.  
  
 _“Go.”_  
  
“Hotch?”  
  
 _“Morgan?”_  
  
“Hotch, we’re twenty minutes away.”  
  
 _“We’re all set for you here, Morgan.”_  There was a pause on the line.  _“Derek, are you okay?”_  
  
Reid reached across and squeezed his knee, offering a smile as he looked away from the road. Morgan returned it, even as his body throbbed with pain.  
  
“I’ll be fine.”  
  
He was not fine. By the time they’d reached the airfield he was still bleeding, and Reid was panicking. Morgan instructed him where they had to go and they were met by Hotch, who watched Morgan’s struggle to get out of the car with a stern gaze.  
  
“What have you gotten yourself into this time, Derek?” Hotch said as he reached for him, supporting his weight.  
  
“Please,” Reid said as he clambered across the seat and out of the car, looking at Hotch. “He needs medical attention. He could bleed out.”  
  
“No,” Morgan said weakly, “we need to get in the air. We need to get out. We’re not safe.”  
  
“Okay,” Hotch said. “Elle, hold things here, I’m going with them. I’m going to give him medical attention on the plane.”  
  
A woman who had been studying the damage to the car signalled her understanding, and Hotch began to move with Morgan. He was struggling to pay attention; Hotch wasn’t much for talking, but when he did say something it was usually important.  
  
He knew he was swimming in and out of consciousness, because the next steady thought he had was when he could feel himself in motion, as the plane took off from the runway. They were safe. Even if he died in the air, Reid was safe. He was so relieved he started to laugh.  
  
“Derek,” Reid said, touching his face.  
  
“He’s okay,” Hotch said as he pushed Reid aside and manoeuvred Morgan to lie down on a couch. “The bleeding looks like it’s mostly stopped. I’m going to sort these wounds out and give him a bag of blood and some fluids. What’s your name?”  
  
“Spencer Reid,” he said hesitantly. Morgan focused through the pain to reach for Reid’s hand.  
  
“It’s okay, I’d trust Hotch with my life. I have. He’s smart, Aaron, let him help if you need him.”  
  
“Can you give an injection, Reid?” Hotch asked as he cut open Morgan’s pant leg, to pay attention to the only wound that was still oozing blood. Reid nodded. “Good. He needs something strong for the pain or he might go into shock.”  
  
Morgan watched hazily as Reid took up a bottle of some kind of morphine and prepared an injection with a distant familiarity.  
  
“This is going to help,” Spencer whispered close to Morgan’s ear as he prepared his arm. “It’s going to feel good, too, but it’s just once, okay? I need you to be okay.”  
  
Morgan suddenly felt flooded with warmth, a feeling that quickly overtook everything; the pain, his sense of time. He felt himself relax under the effect of the narcotic.  
  
Various pressures and sensations made their way to him. At two hours he asked for something, and eased into the pressure on his torso. Almost five hours later, he was lucid enough to realise that it was Reid, carefully lying on his chest and between his legs, wary of his injuries, and sleeping.  
  
“You wanted to hold him,” Hotch said from the opposite sofa, where he was using a laptop. “He tried to stay awake but he’s exhausted. I dressed the cut on his arm and gave him a cream for whatever injury is making him uncomfortable when he tries to sit.”  
  
Morgan grimaced, and lifted the hand that didn’t have an IV in it to stroke Reid’s hair.  
  
“I recognised JJ’s patch job. How is she?”  
  
“Okay,” Morgan said lazily. He could feel a dull throbbing in his arm, but it didn’t hurt.  
  
“How are you?”  
  
“I got shot,” Morgan said, because it felt like an appropriate answer.  
  
“I noticed. He’s a wreck, from what I can see. God knows what I can’t. Those wrists are going to scar, and he needs to eat.”  
  
“I’m going to take care of him.”  
  
“I thought you might. And who is going to take care of you, Derek?”  
  
“I’ll be fine.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What happens after you're finally safe?

Morgan had been under the radar before, but with Hotch’s help to enact his retirement plan, he ceased to exist. There was no record, no paper trail; he was free. Free, with a full bank account and a villa in a quiet town in the rural hills of northern Italy. One thing had not gone quite as planned, and he was standing next to him on the runway of the tiny airport.  
  
Morgan was shaky on his feet, but standing none the less. The fluids had helped, and his wounds would heal. Reid and Hotch flanked him, and he was sure they both expected him to collapse.  
  
“I don’t speak Italian,” Reid said.  
  
“You could learn.”  
  
From across the tarmac, a figure walked quickly towards them, and Morgan registered Reid tensing, fresh with the worry that their ordeal wasn’t quite over yet. He, however, was not worried, because he knew who the figure was. Tall and slim, in heels with a bob cut, she was grinning when they could finally see her face in the light from the plane.  
  
“Derek!” she called, jogging the last dozen feet to wrap herself around him, hugging him tightly.  
  
“Emily,” he returned, slightly pained as she squeezed his arm.  
  
“You hurt?” she asked as she pulled away.  
  
“I’m fine. Where’s Penny?”  
  
“At the house with the kids.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” he said, the guilt clear.  
  
“Everyone’s okay, Derek. It just meant we had to do this sooner than expected.” Her eyes slid across to Reid, who had his arms crossed nervously. “This who got you in trouble?”  
  
“Emily, this is Spencer.” They both nodded at each other in greeting.  
  
“Hotch,” she turned to the man, and they exchanged greetings. “You staying for long?”  
  
“Well I’m going to go see Rossi, but I have things to get back to.”  
  
“Thanks, Hotch,” Morgan said, and clapped him on the arm. “You came through for us.”  
  
“Any time, Derek.”  
  
“C’mon,” Emily urged, waving them to follow her. “You can stay with us tonight. Your place isn’t far off, Derek, but I don’t even think it has running water or power.”  
  
“I did ask Rossi for a fixer-upper.”  
  
They drove for over an hour through rolling countryside in relative quiet, until they reached a small town that was large enough to have a few street lights. They drove through, into the hills, towards secluded villas that looked down over the town and the country beyond.  
  
“Derek!” Penelope accosted him as soon as they’d entered the entrance hall, with a mosaic floor that would look beautiful with a little elbow grease to clean it up. “I thought for sure you’d got yourself killed this time,” she chided, pulling him down to kiss his face. “And who’s this?” She rounded on Reid, brandishing the wooden spoon in her hand.  
  
“Penelope, this is Spencer.”  
  
“Hello,” he said, giving a little wave in greeting this time.  
  
“Hello yourself. You’re so skinny!” she said, but her tone was warm and kind. “Good thing I’ve got dinner, right? Dinner for the grown-ups, anyway, the kids are already fed and down for the night. You two probably want to freshen up first though, right?” She peered at them, and Morgan knew they must both be filthy after what they’d been through. “The guest room has a bathroom, it’s upstairs on the left.”  
  
“Do you have medical supplies?” Reid piped up.  
  
“Yes, we-” Garcia paused, looking between them, and then studying Morgan’s posture. “You’re hurt?”  
  
“I’m fine, Pen. Hotch patched me up, I’m just going to need to change dressings after a wash.”  
  
“Sure, sure,” she nodded.  
  
Once they’d reached the privacy of the spare bedroom, Morgan couldn’t help reaching for Reid’s jaw and pulling him in for a kiss. Reid melted into the contact, both of their aching bodies resting against the other.  
  
“C’mon,” he said as he toed off his boots, “let’s get clean.”  
  
They undressed and Reid helped him peel away the dressings on his wounds, which were beginning to heal around the stitches Hotch had used to help. The shower was a little cold, but the atmosphere was closer and warmer than where they’d come from, so it was a gentle relief. Morgan let Reid ease him up against the shower wall, and gently cleaned his wounds, wary not to use too much pressure. Morgan switched their positions, guiding Reid to lean his front up against the wall.  
  
“Your turn, baby,” he said softly as he gently washed his back and shoulders, and then further down to focus on the smears of dried blood on the insides of his thighs, the evidence of what Morgan hadn’t been able to stop. The last in a long history of abuse that was finally over, that would never be repeated again. As his hand got higher again, his pressed his mouth against the man’s shoulder. “It okay if I touch you here?” He tapped his fingers on the swell of the man’s behind to illustrate his point.  
  
“I’ll be disappointed if you don’t,” Reid muttered, turning his face to peek out from his bracing arms. “I’m getting aroused.”  
  
Morgan chuckled lightly as he gently parted the man’s flesh, fingers gentle against the sore and sensitive skin. “This is meant to be caregiving, not foreplay.”  
  
“Can it be both? It’s been a long time since someone touching me meant I could anticipate pleasure instead of pain.”  
  
Morgan fought the urge to wrap his arms around the other man and pull him close, even though he knew it wouldn’t erase what had happened. Instead he pressed his fingers along the skin of Reid’s perineum, massaging his prostate from the outside. Reid groaned and wiggled his hips back, encouraging more contact. Morgan gave it, and with his other hand working around to stroke the man’s cock, it didn’t take long for Reid to come undone, gasping and bucking his hips, and then reaching needily for Morgan for a kiss. He clung to him, burying his face in Morgan’s neck as water poured over them, his breathing hitched slightly, but he didn’t cry even though he had ever reason to. Morgan smiled as he kissed the side of the man’s face, hoping now, physically so far away from what had happened to him, he’d be able to heal.  
  
It had been just a few days, and Morgan could already sense the telltale signs of edging towards the unstoppable decent into feelings and meaning, of like and want, before need and love. It was too rash, too fast, like the plot of a bad movie, but it was happening. He fought away the doubts and subtle terror at the edge of his mind, determined that even if just for a day, he was going to enjoy being free, and being with Reid.  
  
They ate dinner with Emily and Penelope, and talked casually, as both were savvy enough not to ask Reid about the circumstance under which he came to meet Morgan; they had likely worked out enough to know it was not dinner conversation. Morgan put his head around each of the children’s bedrooms briefly, just to see them peaceful and unharmed by their sudden move. They were both tired, and went to bed without any words, just wrapping around each other and letting the other’s presence sooth them.  
  
The next morning Morgan disentangled himself from Reid’s gangly limbs, smiling and kissing his forehead as he left the bed to use the bathroom. Afterwards he just stood in the doorway and watched Reid sleep for a little while, stretched out in the bed in the sunlight like a cat. He couldn’t bring himself to disturb him, especially when he suspected it would be the last time he ever saw him sleep.  
  
Garcia and Prentiss were on the patio, the latter playing dinosaurs with Lucas and Clara, her camera within arm’s reach, while Garcia spoke on the phone and leafed through a catalogue, and by the sounds of things ordered furniture. They’d only been able to take what they could fit into the car, and Morgan suspected a lot of that room was given to Garcia’s computer equipment.  
  
“You going up to your place?” Emily called as Morgan headed around the side of the house towards the front, mug of coffee in his hand.  
  
“Not yet,” he called back, pausing to turn towards her, “just gonna look at the view.”  
  
Emily's eyes darted towards the house and then back, and then she nodded.  
  
Morgan stood in front of the villa and took in the view, keeping his weight off his injured leg; the rolling hills and the river and town below, and the surrounding country dotted with rural houses. In the near distance to the west, beyond the olive grove on the property, Morgan could see the villa he now owned, a neglected thing that was just waiting for him to help make it liveable once again.  
  
The sound of footfalls got his attention, and he turned to see Reid padding towards him, wearing boxers and the shirt he’d taken off the night before, which were both too big for him.  
  
“Morning,” he greeted sleepily.  
  
“You sleep well?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
There was an expectant silence, where Reid looked like he was waiting for Morgan to prompt him. Morgan took a long breath in through his nose and reached into his back pocket, and brought forward a brown envelope.  
  
“Here.”  
  
Reid took it curiously, brow creased as he looked inside. His frown deepened as he pulled out clip of money and several slips of paper.  
  
“What’s this?”  
  
“It’s five thousand Euros cash,” Morgan explained, “and details on a bank account with a hundred thousand US dollars in it, and a contact who can get you a passport and papers if you need them.”  
  
“I-” Reid looked at him, bewildered. “I don’t understand.”  
  
“You can go, Spencer. You don’t have to stay with me.”  
  
“You want me to go?”  
  
“I want you to do what you want,” Morgan explained kindly. “You don’t owe me anything, kid. You don’t have to stay; you’re free. You can even go home, if you want.”  
  
“I thought,” Reid said weakly, but he didn’t break eye contact with Morgan, “my home was going to be with you.”  
  
“Spencer-”  
  
“Derek,” he said. “You don’t have to protect me from myself, I know what I want. I don’t care if it’s only been a few days; I want to be here with you. I want-” he faltered, “I want to stay here with you, and talk about Star Wars, and find out if you read Chuck Palahniuk or were just quoting him by accident, what your tattoos represent, how you learnt Italian. Don’t ask me to go just to prove I’m capable of making that choice.”  
  
He stashed the money back in the envelope and held it out for Morgan, waiting. Morgan didn’t break their gaze as he took the packet back, so he saw the relief easing into Reid’s face, and pressed his cheek into the contact when he raised his hand to stroke along his jaw. When Reid withdrew the hand, he shuffled closer and framed his fingers around the mug of coffee Morgan was holding at chest height, and turned the mug a little, in the process looking at Derek’s hand. The bite mark from when they’d first met was healing, and Spencer, with a brief glance up at him, lowered his mouth and put a lingering kiss on the mark. Then he eased the mug upwards and took a sip. Morgan felt himself smiling.  
  
“Needs more sugar,” Reid said.  
  
“There’s a pot, get your own,” Morgan said, though he made no move to pull away from the contact. Reid hummed contently, taking another sip.


	13. Epilogue

Eight months had felt like a honeymoon, for the most part.   
  
The villa had water and power, an internet connect but no phone. They had remained pretty insular so far, as though it was a vacation. Morgan’s focus had been on renovating, and once the structural work that required outside help was done Morgan insisted on doing things himself. He made a point never to request anything of Reid – he thought the man had had enough of that for one lifetime, but he still ended up helping. He’d offer, and Morgan would enjoy the time together, so he taught him what he knew and tried to hone the man’s talents.  
  
There were still some brief moments where Reid would be doing something totally normal, totally insignificant to most people, like getting a can of soda from the fridge, when he’d freeze and suddenly seem worried and fretful and ask if it was okay that he’d taken it. It didn’t take Morgan long to understand fully, as Reid told him what had happened, of how much control he’d been under and how he would be punished for the slightest infraction.  
  
Then there were nightmares; terrifying, horrific nightmares that Spencer woke up from screaming and sobbing. Morgan quickly learnt how to calm him, that he shouldn’t touch him afterwards until Reid initiated it, how to hold him and what to say to help it fade into the night. Gradually they got fewer, and less distressing, but they never went away completely.  
  
Reid had said he wanted to tell him everything, and Morgan had said he would listen for as long as it took. At first it had been a long conversation of how Reid had lived, but it had been too hard to keep up. Then it had become little bits of information, stories told when something prompted Reid to remember, or when something was on his mind. Morgan listened to every horrific detail of beatings, abuse, torture, humiliation and rapes and knew that if Reid could survive living that, he could survive hearing it.  
  
Reid was more perceptive than Morgan had realised, though, and began to ask about Morgan’s past. He never thought he’d talk about it, but seeing the weight lift from Reid with each thing he shared, he decided he wanted to. He told him of his own abuse, molestation and rape at the hands of his mentor, at first thinking it didn’t sound anything as bad as what Reid had faced, but Reid never played into the ‘who-had-it-worse’ mentality, and Morgan realised just much it had hurt him to keep it inside him for so long.  
  
The double doors that led out onto the balcony were open wide, letting in a cool afternoon breeze that fluttered the long sheer curtains of their bedroom. The sound of music from the neighbouring villa was just audible, coupled with the sounds of the wind moving through the old house. On the bed in cotton sheets Reid had his legs splayed wide, with Morgan kneeling between them, thrusting a lube-covered dildo leisurely within his lover, his other hand teasing along the man’s cock.  
  
“Derek,” he groaned, leaned back against the pillows. “Derek, c’mon. You now.”  
  
“Are you sure?” Morgan asked, slowing the thrusts to a torturous push and drag. “I’m bigger than this toy, we could go up another size.”  
  
“I want it to stretch a bit,” Reid breathed. “I want to feel you. We’ve prepared for months, it feels so good, I want to feel it with you.”  
  
“I want it too, baby,” Morgan said. “But only if you’re really ready.”  
  
“I’m ready.”  
  
Morgan hesitated, and then spoke a little too casually, “In this position?”  
  
“I know I told you that I was raped regularly in some form of missionary position,” Reid said calmly, “but that’s why I want it this way. My abusers do not get to take this from me; they don’t get to stop me looking at your face when we have sex.”  
  
“Okay,” Morgan said gently, as he slowly withdrew the dildo. They’d been gradually increasing the size of the toy they used, there wasn’t much more they could do to prepare Reid. “You need to tell me if we need to slow down or stop, Spencer.”  
  
“I will,” Reid said as he watched Morgan pick up a condom and the bottle of lube from the antique side table they’d spent several days restoring. “You don’t have to use a condom if you don’t want to. It’s common consensus that it feels better without.”  
  
“You deserve a condom. Nobody cared about you enough to use one before this, Spencer. It’s a miracle nobody infected you with something. I don’t care if I can’t feel a thing, until I’ve got the all-clear, we’re using condoms.”  
  
Reid pushed himself up suddenly, a hand going to the back of Morgan’s neck and pulling their mouths together. “You’re ridiculous,” he murmured against the other man’s mouth.  
  
“I know.” Morgan returned the kiss, and slowly eased Reid back down onto the bed. He pulled back to open the packet and slide the condom over himself, and then squeezed out lube over his length. “You need more?”  
  
“I think I’m lubed enough.” He lifted his legs, holding himself behind the knees to expose himself to Morgan, who felt himself throb at the sight.  
  
Morgan shuffled forward and lined up the head of his cock with Reid’s opening, pink and slightly stretched. He pushed forward firmly, sliding the head into Reid’s body. He looked at the man’s face to make sure he was okay – he was smiling lazily, and deliberately squeezed his muscles around Morgan – and began slow, shallow thrusts. Spencer groaned at the sensation, readjusting his hands on the backs of his knees.  
  
Morgan was prepared for Reid to react badly, to be triggered into panic or have a flashback; he knew exactly what he’d do if it happened. It didn’t, though; when Morgan was inside the man enough for him to comfortably do so, Reid wrapped his legs around the man’s waist, rocking his hips in time with Morgan’s thrusts.  
  
“God, Derek,” he groaned as he reached up and held onto Morgan’s biceps. “Yes, yes.”  
  
“How does it feel, baby?” Morgan asked, resisting the very real urge to shove forward and jackhammer in the tight heat he was working in and out of slowly, letting the man get used to each new inch.  
  
“Good, really good. More please.”  
  
Morgan grinned as he tipped his body forward, sawing in and out, sinking more of his cock into Reid with each inward thrust. Eventually he was flush against Reid’s skin, and the man was shaking below him.  
  
“You okay?”  
  
“Yes.” Reid looked up at him, eyes heavily lidded, his lips swollen from kisses and panting slightly. A shimmer of sweat covered them both, bringing them up in goose bumps where the cool breeze met their heated skin. Morgan lowered himself, taking his weight on his forearms so he could close the gap between them. Reid seemed to appreciate that, because he hummed contently and lifted his head to initiate a kiss.  
  
Morgan began to thrust again, drawing his hips back and pushing forward. Reid was so responsive under him, circling his arms up behind Morgan’s to cling to his back. Morgan trailed his lips across Reid’s jaw and down his neck, sucking gently at the skin.  
  
Reid’s hand had ended up down Morgan’s back, and gripped at his rear, urging him to increase the pace of his movements.  
  
“Faster,” he murmured. Morgan compiled, moving faster to give the man what he wanted. Reid kissed him repeatedly, constant pleasured moans leaving his lips. He looked beautiful getting fucked; strands of his hair sticking to his damp forehead, his pupils blown wide under heavy eyelids, muscles tense as he worked his body against the other man’s but not a trace of apprehension or fear. He was still skinny, but he’d been eating well and wasn’t emaciated anymore. Even for all the scars, he looked healthy.  
  
Morgan pounded harder, bearing down to brace himself against the bed. The noise of them, the sensation of being inside Reid, of fucking someone who wanted him so much, was overwhelming.  
  
“Derek, slow down,” Reid gasped, and Morgan immediately slowed his thrusts.  
  
“Are you okay?”  
  
“Yeah,” Reid arched up, “but if you keep going, I’m going to cum. I don’t want it to be over.”  
  
“Baby, we can do this as much as you want. This isn’t a one-time thing.”  
  
“I know. But this is just so good.”  
  
“You want me to slow down?” Morgan chuckled, pushing himself up. “Okay.” He put his hands on the backs of Reid’s knees to help hold his position, and switched to slow, deep thrusts. Reid’s skin was flushed pink around where he was stretched, the beautiful side of obscene. Morgan pulled out until the head of his cock was in the grips of Reid’s guarding ring of muscle, and then pushed slowly back in until the line of latex on the condom touched his perineum. He repeated it over and over again, watching his movement and watching Reid’s reaction: moans, gasps, and quiet assertions of “yes”.  
  
“Derek, please,” Reid whined. “Please, touch me?”  
  
“Touch you?” Morgan echoed. “Oh,” he grinned, and ran a finger down the length of Reid’s cock, which was hard against his belly and leaking precum.   
  
“Hnng!”  
  
“Like that, Spencer?”  
  
“Oh god, just touch me, please,” he whined.  
  
“Anything you want,” Morgan said as he wrapped his fist around Reid’s cock. He stroked slowly as he continued to thrust, smiling as Reid’s hips jumped up.  
  
“Yes!”  
  
He let Reid fuck into his fist, twisting and squeezing to help him along, his other hand still holding one of Reid’s legs up. Reid gripped the bed, bracing himself as they both worked towards the finish.   
  
“Derek!” he keened finally, the telltale signs of his orgasm on display. “Don’t stop!”  
  
Morgan didn’t, and made consistent hard, deep strokes with his cock in his lover as he jerked him off. Reid yelled and moaned, and came in spurts all over Morgan’s hand, who stroked in such a way that the thick ropes of cum got all over his fingers. He liked to feel him, to not waste anything he had to offer, to show him how much he appreciated it.  
  
“Derek,” he groaned, body holding tense as Morgan milked the last of him. “Derek.”  
  
“How was that?”  
  
“Good,” Reid nodded dumbly. “Good,” he gave an amused sigh, and added; “sticky hand.”  
  
Morgan grinned, panting slightly as he held his hand aloft. “Yeah.”  
  
Reid relaxed back, and lifted his legs deliberately, keeping them pulled back and himself exposed. “Go on.”  
  
“Keep going?” Morgan asked.  
  
“Yeah. Your turn, Derek.”  
  
“Where do you want it, baby?” he asked, and lifted his hand to lick a taste of the man’s semen from his fingers.  
  
“Wherever you want. Things have got to start being about you too, Derek.” His voice was soft, sated. “They’ve been about me all this time... you cum where you want.”  
  
“Gonna stay inside you, baby,” he murmured, and put his sticky hand flat on Reid’s flat stomach as he resumed thrusting.  
  
“I’d hoped you might,” Reid sighed.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah. I want to make you cum. My body will make you cum, Derek.”  
  
“Damn,” Morgan growled, pressing down to keep Reid in place as he fucked him harder.  
  
“It still feels good,” Reid observed, “you moving inside me. Tingles. Sensitive. Fuck.”  
  
“God, baby.” The words coming from his lover’s mouth were sensual and wanton, and pushing him closer and closer to the edge.  
  
“C’mon,” Reid urged, squeezing his muscles. It was enough to send Morgan over the edge; his hips jutted, he growled, and he gripped Reid’s leg harder as he came. It was the most satisfying orgasm of his life, within the man who had changed his life, who had trusted him with everything.  
  
He slumped, shaking with the last quakes of his release. Below him Reid was smiling, a hand stroking his arm soothingly.  
  
“That was amazing,” he said. Morgan wiped his cum-covered hand on Reid’s stomach, and it was his turn to laugh.  
  
“Glad you enjoyed it.” Morgan grinned, pulling out carefully and disposing of the condom.  
  
“Kiss me,” Spencer said as Morgan climbed back onto the bed. Morgan did, stroking Reid’s hair out of his face. “Thank you for being so patient with me. For listening.”  
  
“Of course, baby,” Morgan murmured, his lips brushing Reid’s jaw. He rubbed his thumb over the opposite side, and tipped the man’s face up to meet his gaze. “I love you.”  
  
Reid blinked a few times. “You do?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Thank god,” Reid sighed, slumping back on the bed. “I love you too. I think I’ve been falling in love with you before I’d even seen you.”  
  
“What a cliché,” Morgan said playfully.  
  
“Don’t care. As long as we stay together.”  
  
“We will. As long as you want to be with me,” Morgan said.  
  
“Forever, then.”  
  
Morgan leaned down and kissed Reid again, enjoying the sensation of his cooling naked body against him, and the way his fingers went to trace the lines of muscles on his abdomen. They were becoming acquainted with each other’s bodies, and familiar with each other’s manner and personalities, likes and needs.  
  
“Okay,” Morgan murmured, “forever.”


End file.
